


Coax me out my love low

by tahariel



Series: Frontseat 'verse [1]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - BDSM, Arranged Marriage, BDSM, Dom/sub, Engagement, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-14
Updated: 2013-04-21
Packaged: 2017-11-18 16:42:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 42,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/563180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tahariel/pseuds/tahariel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard enough waiting a year to meet the man you're engaged to, but harder still when that man doesn't even want to stay bonded to you. Charles is determined, however, not to let Erik get away.</p><p>The Frontseat 'verse version of the engagement story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Insuperable Mr Lehnsherr and the Insurmountable Mr Xavier (Esq.)

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to a whole army of people this time for helping me with this story - it would be a much worse bit of fic without the input of **Subtilior** and **Euphorbic** and **Spicedpiano** 's targeted goading ;) And with additional thanks to my very special title consultant **Turtletotem**!
> 
> The second multichapter story in Backseat or Frontseat - I swear these are getting longer...

__

**_I : The Insuperable Mr Lehnsherr and the Insurmountable Mr Xavier (Esq.)_ **

 

Charles is about halfway through his Earl Grey when Emma Frost seats herself across from him at his little table, folding gracefully into the tight corner with her usual poise and sliding off her jacket to hang it over the back of her chair without so much as asking. 

He glances up at her over the papers he’s marking for a brief acknowledgement before finishing the note he’s writing; the student is thinking along the right lines but needs a little further push if she’s to really excel. Emma, on the other hand, is emitting such an aura of tolerant waiting that she is - as she intends - impossible to ignore.

“How lovely to see you, Emma,” Charles says, and lays down his pen with a faint click on the table, looking up at her at last. He waits, patiently, until she tilts her head to the side and exposes her throat in greeting before he does the same. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Can’t two old friends meet unexpectedly and share a few words?” Emma asks, the corner of her mouth curling into a wry smile. 

It’s three o’clock on a lovely September afternoon - one Charles had intended to spend finishing up his grading before getting the beginnings of his next presentation down on paper. It’s no secret that he likes to spend his free time in the corner cafe a couple of blocks off-campus; though the postgrads know where to look, none of the undergrads seem to have discovered his little hideaway. And yet, somehow, Emma knew where to find him.

In the small cafe her sleek white dress seems out of place, tailored and crisp against the shabby-chic of the university district. She looks almost like a rich heiress in a movie, come to find her submissive where he’s run from her and win him back - except Charles is no submissive.

“A dark roast coffee, black, for the lady,” he calls without looking away from Emma, raising a hand to his chin and tapping his forefinger against his lower lip thoughtfully. “As much as I’d like to pretend we were as close as all that, Emma - and you know I like you a great deal - you may as well own up to whatever it is you’re here for. We can catch up after.”

“I don’t need a coffee,” she says, flicking her fingers dismissively at the submissive barista, who looks torn between the two of them, unsure who to listen to. “I have reservations for afternoon tea at The Plaza. I only came here to fetch you.” She gets up from her seat, already swiping at her skirt to remove imaginary dirt.

Charles’ chin lifts, his hands coming to rest folded on the table. His voice, when he speaks, is firm and expects obedience, and he backs it up with a flare of telepathy, batting away her attempt at quiet persuasion. “Sit back down or go alone. I have no intention of going elsewhere.”

He can feel it when Emma bends, even though outwardly she sighs as though greatly put-upon, sitting back down and crossing her legs so that her skirt rides a little up her thighs. It certainly has an effect on the poor barista, who comes over quickly with the coffee and nearly drops it onto the table before retreating, flushed and flustered. 

“If you insist, then. I know Raven has been making inquiries for a bondmate for you,” Emma says, reaching for her drink without so much as acknowledging the near-ruin of her clothing. “I have a proposition that I think you might be interested in, though I had intended to make a better show of wooing you with it.”

Charles raises an eyebrow, intrigued despite himself. “Then you should be wooing Raven. She’s my proxy.”

“This is a little… irregular.” Emma sips at the coffee slowly, eyes never leaving Charles’. “Have you ever met my brother, Erik?”

Both of Charles’ eyebrows fly up this time, and he sits back in his chair, surprised despite himself. “Your submissive brother? Forgive me if I’m wrong, but isn’t his nickname ‘The Insuperable Mr Lehnsherr’?”

Emma snorts, unladylike and genuine, and her eyes crease up at the corners in a way she would probably hate if she saw it in a mirror. “Pfft. This isn’t a Georgette Heyer novel, Charles. If we’re going to be giving fanciful sobriquets you might as well be ‘the Insurmountable Mr Xavier’.”

“Oh, never that. I’m quite fond of a good mounting.”

“‘The Intolerable’, then,” Emma says, eyes twinkling. “Despite its origins, this coffee is very good. I shall have to hunt you down more often.”

“Let’s go back a moment to the part where I believe you were offering me your brother for my bondmate,” Charles says in his best calm voice, but inside he’s bubbling with a curiosity that he tries to keep damped down. 

There’s a hot tingle of what he might as well admit is interest in his belly, because for all the socialite scene’s gossiping ways there’s usually a seed of truth to any rumour you hear more than once, and Erik Lehnsherr is generally considered to be one of the most stubborn and unattainable submissives in New York. Possibly on the Eastern Seaboard. At the age of nearly thirty he’s never shown any interest in being bonded, and little to no interest in submitting to anyone, including his sister.

He’s also, although Charles has never seen him, supposed to be extremely handsome.

“Offering is too strong a word for it. Suggesting, perhaps.” Emma pauses for a moment before setting down her mug with a quiet chink of china on the tabletop. “If Erik was looking to be genuinely bonded, finally, then I would have been happy to just approach your sister in the conventional way and let things sort themselves out. However… Erik is rather more complicated than that. I thought it would be better to talk to you first, and let you decide if you want me to talk to Raven or not.”

It’s impossible not to be intrigued, and there are easier ways to communicate complicated things between two telepaths. Charles reaches out for her mind, questioning, but finds only a diamond wall between them, keeping him out. 

<<?>>

“Use your words, poppet,” Emma says, wagging an elegant finger at him. “No peeking, you know that’s not allowed.”

“I wasn’t.”

She smiles, tapping the white leather of her bonding bracelet where it lies flush around her left wrist. “I did. Telepaths always do.”

“Then it’s hardly fair,” Charles says, but he huffs good-naturedly as he finishes the last of his tea, then leans forward to prop his elbows on the table, dropping the pretence of neutrality. The wood is cool against his skin where he’s rolled up the sleeves of his Oxford shirt, forearms freckled still from the summer. “Alright, then. I’m interested in hearing more, at least. What makes Erik so complicated?”

Emma pauses, then, leaning forward a little, she says, in a calm, milk-and-honey voice, “He plans to get bondbroken the moment he’s been bonded long enough to scrape by propriety.”

It's like being slapped in the face. Charles stops, halfway through raising a hand for another cup of tea. “What?”

“Erik wants out from my house and into his own with the minimum amount of fuss. Which means getting bonded, getting deflowered, and then getting bondbroken so he can be an independent divorced sub.” Emma shrugs, a fluid motion that sends her hair slipping over one shoulder. “He thinks he’s keeping the thought quiet, but he forgets that I’m also his sister and I know him too well to think he’s changed his mind.” 

“And so you’re suggesting I go through all the procedures and ceremonies of taking him for my bonded, only to have him throw me over the first chance he gets?” Charles sits up straight, back and away from Emma, and squares himself, jaw clenching. 

He refuses to acknowledge the disappointment already replacing what had been excitement - ridiculous, given that he hadn’t really been offered Erik in the first place. “No, thank you. I’m looking for someone who wants to be bonded to me, Emma, a partner, not someone who’s not even interested in giving it a try. I’m serious about getting bonded, and I resent your trying to make me - well, frankly, Erik’s green card to independence. He’s well within his rights to just move out.”

“We both know that being an unbonded, undivorced submissive living on his own isn’t going to be the minimum of fuss,” Emma says, very seriously. “And no matter how talented he is, it will have effects on his career and on his social life. Without going into detail, he’s experienced that sort of life before, and he is never going to choose that for himself.”

Outside a cab honks loudly at a couple of cyclists crossing the street, and Charles watches the leaves falling slowly from the red and golden fall-clad trees, letting disinterest colour his whole affect. “I fail to see how that’s my problem.”

A sharp noise of exasperation, and then Emma reaches out and lays two fingers on his forearm, light and uncontrolling but, instead, almost submissive, requesting rather than demanding his attention. “Because I have always thought that if he ever decided he did want to be part of a couple, you would be my first choice.” 

When Charles turns back to look at her, blinking in slow surprise, Emma’s typical air of lofty amusement is utterly gone, her gaze firm and solemn. She continues, her voice steady and unwavering. “Erik is difficult, and stubborn, and he will never submit to anyone who doesn’t earn it from him, and though I would never say this to him - because he would never listen to me - he could be very good for somebody willing to put in the time and effort to earn it. Someone who’s not going to force him down, but not let him keep pretending he doesn’t want to go. Erik is a pain in my ass, but he’s my little brother, and I want him to be happy. And - Charles, I’ve known you ever since you were a baby. There’s not a bad bone in your body.”

Charles has always been a little vain, and it’s impossible not to be flattered, but… “Look,” he says, and leans forward again, reaching up with one hand to shove his hair back out of his face when it flops forward, “that’s a lovely thing for you to say, Emma, and I really appreciate that you have such a high opinion of me, but surely if you like me so much then you wouldn’t be asking me to be your brother’s Dominant for the month or so before he throws me over. I don’t want my first - ideally only! - submissive to divorce me.”

“You’re missing the point,” Emma says, and leans forward too, over the table and his grading, raising one sleek eyebrow in sly invitation. “I’m not saying you should just let him go. I’m saying you should seduce him.”

There is a long silence broken only by the sound of traffic outside.

“What,” says Charles, and then moves his hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose for a minute, closing his eyes against Emma’s knowing face. It doesn’t help. “Let me get this straight. You’re suggesting I bond myself to your brother on the off-chance I might be able to make him love me instead of following through on what is obviously a well-thought-out plan to achieve total independence from all Domination.”

“Yes,” she says, nodding. “For his own good. And yours. You’ll love him.”

“Is that an order?” Charles asks, only half joking, and Emma says, “No. It’s a promise.”

Jesus Christ. He opens his eyes and looks at her slantways, past his hand, taking in her expression and what little she’s letting him read from her mind. There’s no hint of falsehood there, no misdirection - Emma believes what she’s saying, is deadly serious, the persuasion laid over determination like a knife blade under fur.

They’re used to him in here, so when he drops a polite request for an Irish coffee into the barista’s mind the girl just goes for the whisky instead of kicking up a fuss, which is good, because he’s going to need a stiff drink for this. At least the sun is past the yardarm. The elderly coffee machine comes on with a rattle, and Charles doesn’t so much as turn, too busy cataloguing the line of Emma’s jaw, pressed tight, and the slight curl of her fingers, tense atop his paperwork. “You love him a lot, don’t you?” he asks quietly. “Erik.”

“He’s my brother.”

“Half-brother.”

“You have less blood in common with Raven than I do with Erik.”

“What makes you so sure we’d work?” He’s not even sure why he’s even considering this instead of walking away. Charles lowers his hand at last, drawing in a deep breath that he exhales in a rush, trying to let the unsteadiness out of his lungs and away. “I respect your opinion, Emma, you know I do, but this would be a big risk for me. Not just socially - I hate thinking like that, but it would affect my position politically with people who care about this sort of thing. And it would be a personal risk, too. I wouldn’t be doing this as a favour to you. It would be real, for me.”

Emma makes a thoughtful noise, then finally she sighs and reaches out to him, hand and mind at once, laying her palm across Charles’ and opening a door to him in that diamond wall. “Moira did say you’d need more persuasion,” she says ruefully - and with her telepathy she invites him in.

It doesn’t even need a step forward, they’re so close. Instead Charles just looks, and sees - 

Sees an impression of a man. No physical attributes, but a mind - a mind, oh, like an intricate map, or blueprints, organised and thrumming with purpose. There’s intent there, and determination, and intelligence, there’s a man who cares about things with strength and passion, who doesn’t suffer fools gladly but loves fiercely, without giving quarter. A man who would submit if only he found someone worth submitting to, who longs for it and fears it and doesn’t think he’ll ever get it. The idea of Erik is coloured by Emma’s exasperated affection for him, the only member of her blood she has ever truly loved, whom she fights with and for and has fought for, whom she wants to look after even though he won’t let her - 

“That’s enough of that,” Emma says, and pulls back before Charles is ready to stop looking, closing herself off again and leaving only the surface of her thoughts behind, glassy and reflecting only his own stunned expression back at him.

“Oh,” Charles says, and sits back heavily in his chair, only then noticing the coffee that’s been left for him while he was in Emma’s mind. He picks it up with a hand that is only steady because he forces it to be and takes a long swallow, the whisky burning down his throat and warming his belly.

He feels like he’s half in love already, with someone he’s never even met. He feels stunned, like someone has come and hit him upside the head.

“So you’ll do it?” Emma asks.

And when he closes his eyes and simply nods he can feel her smile.


	2. Maybe I don't want to win this time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With thanks to Euphorbic, Subtilior (who did a heroic, cross-Atlantic beta by text message) and especial gratitude to Spicedpiano, who somehow keeps me from going off the deep end.
> 
> Astasia has done [this hilarious comic](http://astasia.tumblr.com/post/36239847174) for chapter one, which is basically the plot of this story in a nutshell XD

Erik paces.

It’s something he’s always done when stressed, and today is no exception. He thinks better in motion, and shut in his bedroom it’s impossible for him not to pace, like a caged tiger – if he goes out into the apartment he’ll have to pretend to be fine, but in here he feels claustrophobic, shut in with his thoughts and his plans.

The carpet is soft under his bare feet as he walks a circuit of his room, touching each piece of metal as he passes. Lamp. Bedstead. Free weights. The handle of his wardrobe door. Laptop. His stress ball, made of soft silver. And as he goes he turns his plan over and over in his mind until it’s ingrained deeply enough that he can keep it from popping up at inconvenient moments - sitting beside Emma and across from his prospective Dominant’s family member would be a good time not to be thinking about divorce.

He leaves Mother’s collar in its velvet-lined box in the bottom drawer of his desk, but he strokes his power over its fittings anyway, feeling the shape of the studs, of the buckle. He’s never touched it, but he imagines the leather is butter-soft, that she would have smiled when her bondmate put it on her.

Not that her bondmate had had anything to do with Erik. He wasn’t Erik’s father, after all.

Erik finally pauses in front of the windows and leaves his hand resting against the cool glass, looking out at the bay and trying to persuade himself to stop feeling so anxious. It’s a simple plan; there’s nothing to be nervous about. He needs to be charming, but not so much that Emma gets suspicious - she won’t have sold him as a perfect submissive, and he has no interest in acting like one. He needs them to think of him as a good choice for their Dominant, and make Emma an offer. The offer is the important part. There’s always the possibility that they might not, and that’s acceptable - it may take some time to find someone who considers him a good fit. But there’s no reason to prolong the process any longer than he has to.

The smart white shirt and grey pants he picked out after his shower this morning feel wrong, awkward, like he’s putting himself on display. He’s about ready to go and check himself in the mirror again when he senses Moira’s collar coming along the corridor to his room, and he’s already reaching his power toward the door when her knuckles rap against the wood. “Erik? Are you up?”

“Yes.” He doesn’t turn, too busy watching the cars running along the road down below, but he makes a quick gesture with two fingers to spring the lock, then draws down the handle and lets the door swing open. “Morning.”

There’s a brief footstep on the carpet, then, after a pause, Moira closes the door behind herself and comes over to stand beside him at the window. A hand touches his arm and Erik leans into it, shifting obligingly when she tucks it into the crook of his elbow. Her smile is warm, when he finally looks at her. “Are you nervous?”

Erik just shrugs, knowing she’ll accept that as a tacit confession. 

In the early morning sunlight her hair is copper-brown and beautiful, curling on her shoulders where it’s not yet been tied up for the day, and he loves her then, turns a little more towards her, putting his hand over Moira’s in a way he would find difficult with Emma. “Are you going out while they’re here?”

“It would get a little overcrowded otherwise.” She tugs on his arm, insistent. “Come on, I’ve made breakfast. Can’t have you passing out in front of your prospective in-laws.”

Erik grumbles and complains, but Moira drags him out through the living room anyway and into the kitchen, and pushes him down into a chair at the kitchen table, bustling around and pressing on his shoulder when he tries to get up to help. “Coffee,” she says, setting the cup down in front of him, “and pancakes. Here’s the syrup.”

He knows when he’s been beaten. Erik picks up his fork to break into the top of the stack, steam escaping in a rush. “Where’s Her Majesty?”

Moira snorts as she sits down opposite him. “Armouring up.”

“Estee Lauder does a fine line in chain mail,” Emma says from the kitchen doorway, but she’s smiling, and comes to stand beside Moira with an overspill of fondness that fills the room, effortless and all-pervasive; she’s still smiling when she bends to press her lips to Moira’s temple, sweeping her sub’s hair back over her shoulder to bare the skin and leaving a lipstick mark behind. 

In the warm light of the kitchen Emma looks especially perfect, dressed in a crisp white jacket and pants with a cream shirt, her hair swept up into a complicated-looking chignon, not a detail out of place. Her voice is wry. “I have to look my best when I’m trying to hand over my little brother.”

Erik doesn’t dignify that with a response, mouth full of pancake, but Moira shakes her head, ducking her chin to hide her amusement. “Oh, honestly. You say it like you’re selling him into slavery.”

“You say that like I’m not.”

“Raven is perfectly lovely, and you know it.” Moira keeps eating, only the hand holding her fork moving so that she is almost entirely motionless as Emma lays her hands on Moira’s shoulders and gathers her hair together, stroking through it with her fingers to get it straight before starting to braid a small section.

When he first moved in with them Erik had been mesmerised by the way Emma did Moira’s hair every day; by now it’s just part of the routine, and even though Emma’s building up to something complicated this morning Erik is caught instead on the name Moira let slip, turning it over in his mind to see if he recognises it. It doesn’t ring any bells. “Raven?”

Emma glances up from her braiding, her fingers continuing to work. “Raven Darkholme, sugar. She’s the one coming to meet you.”

“Not the potential Dominant.”

She fastens the first plait at the bottom with an elastic band, then moves on to the other side of Moira’s head. “No, his sister.”

Huh. “What’s his name?” Erik asks, trying to be casual, but gets a sly look from both women, who glance at each other with a level of amusement that is utterly disproportionate to his reasonable question.

“Remember that you promised at the beginning of this process not to look up any of your potentials online,” Emma says, her fingers finishing tying off the second braid, then shifting to gather the rest of Moira’s hair over her left shoulder for a third, thicker one. Her white-lacquered nails flash in and out of the rich brown of Moira’s hair with practiced ease. “That includes looking up Raven, of course.”

Erik rolls his eyes, exasperated. “Yes, I remember.”

“If you disobey me on this one I will be very angry with you.”

“I _know_. Just tell me his name, alright? You know this Raven will use it anyway.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. It’s Charles,” Moira says, and taps her fork against the edge of Erik’s plate with a loud ring of metal on china. “Charles Xavier. Now eat your pancakes before they go completely cold.”

 _Charles Xavier._ Erik skewers a piece of pancake and wipes it through the syrup on his plate, lifting it to his mouth as he repeats the name to himself silently. This one does sound familiar, though he can’t place it. He frowns, trying to recall where he’s heard it before. “Isn’t he a friend of yours?” he asks Emma, taking a swig of his coffee to wash down the pancake.

Emma smirks and fastens off the end of the braid. “If you don’t remember, I’m not going to tell you.” The way she’s arranged Moira’s hair is beautiful, a long fishtail trailing around one side of her neck and concealing the collar on that side while leaving it totally exposed, along with the slim line of her throat, on the other. She strokes her fingers down the bare side of Moira’s neck affectionately and gestures at Erik’s plate. “Finish up, Raven will be here soon. Moira, sweet, if you intend to leave before Raven arrives then you had better go. Give my love to Jean.”

“Evading one lovely redhead for another,” Moira says, but she kisses the backs of Emma’s fingers before she stands to clear the plates, swiping Erik’s out from under his lifting fork even as he takes the last bit of his breakfast to his mouth.

He only just manages to rescue his mug long enough to drink the dregs of his coffee before that too is taken away from him.

“Come on, sweetheart, let’s go make you pretty for Raven,” Emma says, and laughs when Erik swats her hand away from his hair. On the second try she dodges him and ruffles it anyway, affection spilling over from her in a way that he can’t quite rebuff.

He feels a little guilty for deceiving her, but he’ll get over it.

~*~

Raven is -

Well, to put it quite bluntly, she’s stunning.

Erik manages not to stare, barely, as Emma shows her in, but it’s difficult. Raven Darkholme is a beautiful lapis lazuli blue from head to toe, and scaled, the rust red of her sweater dress only emphasising the Otherness of her skin and her scarlet hair. That she is all smiles as she greets Emma softens the impact, a little, and Erik can’t help but think that if her brother is anything like her he might be in trouble.

Her eyes are golden when they swing around from Emma to face him across the room, and he rises from his armchair and ducks his head - briefly - when she approaches, without lowering his eyes. “Ms Darkholme.”

She lifts her chin politely, acknowledging him as a sub. “Mr Lehnsherr. It’s lovely to meet you.” 

It’s only when she turns to look at Emma and releases him from her gaze that Erik realises how young she really is. Raven can’t be more than twenty years old, maybe twenty-one, a slender slip of a thing who waits until Emma has chosen her seat - the end of the right-hand couch closest to Erik - before taking the other armchair on the opposite side of the little seating cluster, leaving Emma quite properly between her and Erik. She folds her hands neatly into her lap and appears perfectly composed, not a moment’s hesitation as she says, more formally, “Thank you for inviting me to visit your brother, Emma.”

“Erik is younger in both age and temperament,” Emma replies, equally formal, though Erik can hear the amusement in her voice. Her mind around his is a velvet glove, an invisible touch in lieu of a physical one. “I’m happy to arrange for the visit. With our father and his mother both departed, I am responsible for him.”

Raven nods. “Charles is elder than myself in age and temperament, and as there is no Dominant senior to him in our family, he’s asked me to be his proxy in looking for a suitable bondmate.”

Erik logs this - Charles is Head Dom of his family - with keen interest as Emma breaks into a true smile, small but real, leaning forward over the coffee table for the tea set Moira had left there before she went out. “Wonderful. Now that we have that out of the way, would you like some tea? Coffee?”

“Coffee would be lovely, thanks.” Raven takes the cup when it’s offered and sits back without relaxing her posture, poised, like a ballet dancer. She turns her eyes back on Erik now that the formality is over, swinging back to him like a magnet, and her gaze is piercing as she appraises him. 

A shiver runs down his spine that he works hard to conceal, and he looks back with scarcely less interest. 

“Not shy, then,” she says.

“Not really, no,” Erik says, and accepts his own coffee from Emma, keeping his posture at least as good as hers. He assesses Raven in return, trying to guess what her family might be like. She’s clearly from money, and she’s confident, used to being taken seriously despite her young age. Her brother might be Dominant to her but he hasn’t crushed her. It’s interesting that he’s the Head Dom so young, assuming there’s no great age difference there. Even more so that his proxy is so young; it suggests that there’s nobody else senior to her, either. “What would you like to know?”

“Hush, Erik,” Emma says. While her face stays serene, she gives him a mental pinch, one that he has to work hard not to flinch from. << _Remember that I have to talk about you in front of you,_ Emma says in his mind,  << _it’s part of the process. Don’t kick off and embarrass me, >> _then aloud: “Erik isn’t a meek submissive. He needs patience and a steady hand, and somebody not too egotistical to work for it. Anyone who just expects him to roll over will get less than nothing from him. Not that Charles is like that.”

Erik glares at her anyway, and is ready to object to being silenced at his own damn visitation when he’s cut short.

“Charles has a very caring nature.” Raven is still looking at Erik, reading his responses. He feels like an insect pinned to a card for her inspection, every twitch of his face registered while hers has gone utterly impassive, impossible to interpret. “Sometimes he’s too caring, and he gets taken advantage of. But he is patient, and he wouldn’t force Erik down. He wouldn’t need to. Charles could out-wait and out-Dom a rock.”

That’s - a small flare of curious longing ignites in Erik’s chest, one he smothers as soon as he gets it under control. The worry that goes with it he buries deep, where Emma won’t see it without digging. It doesn’t matter if this Dominant sounds appealing - he’s already decided on being alone, and regardless of how good a Dominant Charles might be, it’s irrelevant to Erik’s intentions. He shifts in his chair, then stops when both women turn to look at him, lifting his chin as though he was just getting comfortable instead of trying to hide his nerves.

“Is he a mutant too?” he asks for want of a better distraction, trying to imagine a male Raven. The image is… not unappealing. _Damn it._

“Oh,” says Raven, and this time she sounds genuinely surprised, her scaled brow rising. “Didn’t Emma tell you? Charles is a telepath, like her.”

 _Fuck,_ thinks Erik, feeling himself flush, and doesn’t say anything else the whole time Raven is there, too busy thinking about what this means.

“Fuck,” he says later that afternoon when Emma has gone out to join Moira and left him by himself, sat on the balcony looking out at the city passing by below. Without an audience, he can finally say it out loud, hands clenching into fists until his fingernails dig sharply into his palms. It was harder than he thought it would be, going through the motions, and then to find out his potential Dominant is a telepath…

Erik has to resist the urge to get up and pace again, and instead tips his head back against the chair to stare at the sky, thinking it through.

He’s not opposed to telepaths in general, and Emma knows it. He’s used enough to living with one that if anything, if he _was_ serious about getting bonded, he might have _chosen_ – 

No. Concentrate.

It wouldn’t have been an issue for him at all, if he hadn’t been intending on getting bondbroken as soon as it appears that he’s given the relationship enough of a try for people to shrug and let it go. Erik shakes out his hands and wraps them around the arms of his chair, the metal in it familiar and safe.

Theoretically he can go to Emma, tell her he doesn’t want this bondmate, that she should pick somebody else, but he’ll have to give a reason and it can’t be the telepathy. If he lies she’ll know. There’s no way she won’t delve into him to see what the real problem is so she can try to fix it, the way she always does, like a mother alligator carrying its babies around in its jaws, coldblooded and unafraid to bite. Emma loves him fiercely, and Erik loves her, too, but uneasily, has never quite been able to accept her control.

They found each other too late for her to feel like his real sister, and not a Dominant taking command of his life when he had nobody else and no other choice. She means well, but Erik’s never felt like he could just let her be in charge, the way he knows other submissives do.

“Alright,” he tells the sky, and his hands tighten around the arms of the chair, the cast iron cool against his palms. “If Charles is a telepath, and if he knows Emma is my sister, he’ll have to adhere to ethics and keep out unless I give him permission to come in. If he doesn’t find it, the plan is fine. If he does find it, he’ll divorce me and it’ll be no fault of mine and I’ve succeeded anyway. It’s all good.”

The problem is - the problem is, Emma is choosing someone to make him happy, and Erik - he admits this to himself through gritted teeth, reluctant and wary to even think it - Erik is afraid she might succeed.

Now he’ll just have to wait and see if Raven liked him enough to send a formal offer for his collar. Maybe, Erik thinks, this Charles Xavier won’t be interested, anyway.


	3. I've got a gift and it blew me a ways

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Spicedpiano and Subtilior for their swift and excellent betas, without which I would be lost! More (spoilerific) notes at the end :3
> 
> I've also done a little Frontseat drabble [here](http://tahariels.tumblr.com/post/37049569485/ooh-ooh-frontseat-verse-if-it-sounds-like-fun-you) on my tumblr!

“You’re awfully calm about this.”

Raven sounds almost disgruntled by it, and Charles smiles, private and heartfelt, lifting his feet up onto the free corner of the footstool in front of his armchair. “It’s like you want me to be a nervous wreck, love.”

They’re in the library of the Westchester house, Raven occupying most of the footstool where she’s sat in front of the fire, waiting for her long wet hair to dry after her bath, the terrycloth of her dressing gown wrapped only loosely around her body. The warm close glow of the lamp and the fire, and the darkness outside, renders her a midnight shadow save for where the firelight flickers from her scales. It’s a comfortable sort of closeness, her mind butting up against his, Charles dressed in his favourite cardigan and comfiest jeans and the both of them surrounded by the smell of old paper and ink and the woodsmoke from the fireplace. Tomorrow he has to go to Prague for an International Mutant Rights conference, but for tonight he’s in his favourite place, and with his favourite person.

Sitting at his feet, Raven could be mistaken for a submissive, if it weren’t for the set of her shoulders and her utter self-possession; as it is she flicks the ends of her hair over his feet, wetting his socks, and raises an eyebrow when he says “Hey!”

“I want you to at least be a little nervous about it,” she says, mouth pursed into a pucker of fond annoyance. “How am I supposed to make fun of you if you’re so - so _calm_ about it all?”

The book in his hands droops to lay flat in his lap, forgotten. Charles tips his head against the winged side of the chair, habit making him shift enough that it doesn’t bare his neck. His tone when he speaks is dry. “The fact that it was Emma who came to visit rather removes the concern that my potential bondmate’s family might object to me personally. I was more worried that you’d deliberately pick someone terrible first and then dangle the possibility you might bond me to them over my head for a while.”

Raven snorts, nose crinkling. “How rude. As if I would be so cruel.”

Amused, Charles just raises his eyebrows and prods her with his toes, wriggling them into her side where she’s most ticklish. They dig right in under her ribs, and Raven screeches, taken by surprise and squirming, laughing helplessly. She attempts to evade him without falling off the footstool, her hands batting solidly at his calf while she shrieks, but then she manages to grab his ankle and it becomes a pitched battle, her inhuman strength dragging him from his chair onto the rug before Charles can get a good enough grip on the armchair to stop her. He lands with a heavy thud and an “Oof!” as he falls right on his tailbone, electricity stinging up his spine from the impact. 

“You’re so dignified,” Raven teases, flopping onto her side while Charles sprawls, laughing, on the floor in front of his chair.

“The very model of a modern Senior Dominant,” he agrees, breathless and solemn, and he tips his head back against the cushion behind him, not caring for once about propriety - Raven won’t give a damn, and it’s comfortable. His chest heaves, blood pumping through him while he waits for retaliation. When it doesn’t come, though, he reaches up and back for his tumbler of scotch, which has somehow remained miraculously unspilled. “I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time to tease me, once we know one way or another if Emma’s accepted your offer. It’s one thing to decide I want to settle with some amorphous someone, and quite another to have someone else say they’re willing to bond their very tangible family member to me. It gets very real, all of a sudden.”

A log shifts in the fireplace and sends a shower of sparks up the chimney, the crackling of the wood the only sound as Raven gets up to come and sit next to him, laying her head on his shoulder and leaning her wet hair against his cheek. She smells like vanilla. “It’ll be fine,” she says, taking his hand in hers and clasping it tight. “You’re going to be a great Dom. Erik - well, he seems like a stubborn mule, but then I thought you’d like that, plus he’s used to telepaths. And I’m pretty sure he has a massive cock.”

Charles chokes on his next mouthful of scotch. “Raven!”

“What? Put it this way, he packs left,” Raven says, utterly unrepentant, and laughs herself sick at the look on Charles’ face where it is most definitely the alcohol in his windpipe turning Charles bright red, her whole face creasing up as she curls over, arms clutching her belly.

 

~*~

 

Later that evening Charles wraps his betrothal present for Erik, just in case Emma sends the acceptance while he’s in Prague; he wouldn’t want it to be late, especially after he’s spent so long thinking about what it should be.

The gift is supposed represent something about yourself, something that will tell your prospective bondmate a little of who you are. Charles has spent hours he could ill afford, even before Emma approached him, trying to come up with something that might interest his future submissive. For all the television shows and books and advertisements that claim to provide the perfect betrothal gift, Charles had been utterly stymied to find one single object that said anything about who he is as a person.

In the end, though, he found it in his study, tucked between his copy of Millward’s _Treatise on Genetic Identity_ and a box file of old Law Review journals. It’s possible that Erik won’t like it, or that he’ll find it boring. But at least it isn’t a box of tea leaves, or some terribly expensive piece of jewellery that says nothing but that Charles is rich and can afford to buy meaningless gewgaws, and thinks that money represents everything that is important and special about himself.

 

~*~

 

Later yet, he gets out of bed in the middle of the night, despite having a five a.m. start, undoes all of his earlier work, and makes one small addition before rewrapping the whole thing with meticulous care, despite his bleary eyes. He checks that the corners are crisp and perfect, everything aligned exactly right, then goes back to bed for the two or three hours he has before he has to be up and out.

 

~*~

 

The doorbell goes while Erik is in his study at home working on some plans for a new university building in Malta, one pen stuck behind each ear and a metal ruler clutched in his left hand. He’s in the middle of outlining his initial sketches, so he’s too distracted to be aware of the doorbell as more than a distant annoyance. He’s vaguely conscious of the sound of Emma going to answer it - meaning he doesn’t have to get up - but then Emma’s calling for him from the main room, and apparently being allowed to concentrate on his work was a luxury he shouldn’t have hoped for.

For fuck’s sake, he’s _working_ here.

“Coming,” he shouts back, and doesn’t move for a good two minutes, until he has the line demarcating the lower boundary of the building’s foundations perfectly angled.

When he does finally get into the living room Emma shoots him an unimpressed look and gestures impatiently for him to come and sit down on the couch. There’s a woman he doesn’t recognise standing in front of it, on the other side of the coffee table, with a large box in her arms. Erik pauses, wary, before Emma says, “For God’s sake, Erik, sit. This is your gift from Charles.”

He’d forgotten all about that. Emma accepted Raven’s offer yesterday, so he probably should have been expecting it. “Oh,” he says, and tries not to look as nauseated as he feels when he circles around the couch to sit beside his sister in front of the courier, who smiles at him as though she sees this every day.

“With compliments of Professor Charles Xavier, and all hopes for your future bond,” she says cheerfully, and bends to deposit the presentation case in the centre of the table. 

It’s about the size of a flower box, broad and flat, made of the sort of thick, matte card they use in high-end department stores. The top is a flap secured down by a pair of metal snaps that the courier reaches forward and opens with quick, deft pinches of her fingers, lifting the lid to reveal the contents. Erik finds himself leaning forward to get a better look.

Inside the box is a thick bed of padding surrounding a silk-wrapped rectangular object a little larger than his hand, the corners of the wrapper tied at the top in a sleek knot, stiff enough for the wings to stand out and open on their own, careful and perfect. The silk is bronze, printed with small silver birds around the edges.

Knotted silk in a bonding gift, Erik knows, symbolises willing bondage.

His breath catches on some emotion he can’t name.

“ _Furoshiki_ ,” Emma says from beside him, and she sounds like she’s smiling. “I haven’t seen that in a while. How like Charles.”

“Is there a return gift?” the courier asks, seemingly oblivious to the way Erik’s lungs have stopped in his chest, and Emma answers for him while he’s still staring at the bundle in front of him, focusing hard on not letting his hands curl into fists. He reaches for his present as she gets up from the couch and goes to fetch Erik’s gift for Charles, ignoring their conversation as he tugs the knot loose and pulls away the silk.

And inside… is a book.

 _Phenomenology of Perception_ is written across the top of the paperback cover in large white letters, the book’s corners slightly damaged, as though it’s been read often. Often, and thoroughly, if the way the pages have been repeatedly dogeared is any indication. Erik picks the book up and turns it over in his hands with a puzzled frown to read the description on the back. It’s a philosophy text, about subjective experience of reality and how it relates to the human brain.

It is not, to put it bluntly, what Erik was expecting. “What the hell is this supposed to mean?”

“Erik,” Emma says disapprovingly, but beside her the courier woman is grinning like the Cheshire cat, the presentation box with Erik’s ‘gift’ for Charles now in her hands. “I like the weird ones the best,” she says, reaching into her back pocket and pulling out a folded baseball cap which she slides on with a sly wink. “They usually say the most, you know? Have a good evening.”

While Emma’s distracted with showing the woman out Erik opens the book at random and reads the chapter heading of the page - _Experience and Objective Thought: The Problem of the Body_. He skims the first few lines, increasingly confused. It’s all very dry scientific stuff, about how a house is the same house when you look at it from different sides but you can’t see them all at once, which is surely common sense and not worthy of publication. He’s about to throw the book down in disgust when something makes him turn the page, and there in the margin on the right-hand side is a chickenscratch scribble in old and browning ink which reads, _but how does this apply to telepathy?_  
 _  
_Huh.

Erik flicks through a few more pages, and while not every page has an annotation, quite a few of them do - there are a few highlighted sections, in what must once have been bright blue but is now softer, faded, notes even more uneven in places where the swell of the spine has gotten in the way and made it hard to write straight. The notes are like half-thoughts squeezed into the margins and around the tops and bottoms of the text, some of them barely legible, things like _different perceptions between different people’s eyes - role of differing pigment levels in people leading to different perceptions of light, everyone’s universe is therefore different if perception = reality_ and _if sensations are all illusions what is telepathy_ and _you don’t need to be a telepath to work that one out_ , which is in all caps underneath a particularly long paragraph which, to Erik, seems to say almost nothing and take a very long time in doing it.

“What an odd present,” Emma says over his shoulder. Erik startles, not having realised she was there; he twists in his seat, the book falling closed in his lap, to find her leaning on the back of the couch with her hair finally loosed from its tight updo to fall across her shoulders. She looks gentler like this, more casual, and when she reaches out to take the book from him he doesn’t resist, letting her come around the end of the couch to drop down next to him and lean against his shoulder with familial disdain for personal space.

She glances at the book’s cover, then turns it over to read the description on the back. “Tch. How very like Charles, giving you Merleau-Ponty for a bonding gift.” She opens it, spreading it between her hands, and there’s a long moment before she laughs, face becoming terribly fond all of a sudden in a way not dissimilar to the way she looks at Erik, sometimes, when he’s not driving her crazy.

“What?” Erik looks down at the book, but there’s nothing especially funny about the annotation on that page - _is the perception of a perception inherently less valuable, like a game of telephone, or does a wider access to perception give a wider viewpoint_ \- unless it is Charles’ handwriting, which is atrocious.

“It’s just funny to think that I used to change his diapers,” Emma says, leaning her head against Erik’s, temple-to-temple, “and now he’s sending my brother philosophy texts he’s essentially expanded to include telepathy, when it’s not even his field, although I still very vividly remember putting him down to nap after his din-dins.”

“Don’t you think it’s rather creepy and incestuous that you’re essentially marrying your two children to one another?” Erik asks her, and snorts when she smacks him with the back of her hand, then lets her drag his head down so she can kiss the top of it.

He takes the book to bed with him that evening, and reads through it slowly by the light of his bedside lamp, the covers pulled up around his lower chest and his knees drawn up to support the book. It _is_ dry, and normally Erik wouldn’t even care what the book is about when it’s this much work, but between the annotations and Emma’s obvious affection for Charles - for Erik’s promised Dominant - it’s easier to read it as though he’s trying to see what Charles obviously saw while reading it, trying to get a measure of the man. He reads the book only so he can make sense of the notes.

It’s difficult to be objective when so much is riding on this one man. Erik tries to remain distant, analytical, but every time he finds himself sincerely considering one of Charles’ points he has to stop for a minute and remind himself that the better he understands Charles, the better he will understand how to be free of him when he needs to be. The less of himself he will have to give up to get there.

And then, on page two hundred and forty-one, about halfway through the book, there is a note that is written in bright black ink, fresh and stark against the page, defiantly and obviously new. Erik’s eyes flicker to it immediately, and his heart pauses in his chest, because there is no doubt in his mind that Charles has left this specifically for him.

" _My dear,_ ” it reads, in much neater handwriting than the older scribbles, copperplate and elegant but with something similar in it that leaves no room for doubt, “ _if you catch this, I know 1) you've read this far, and 2) you're reading with attention. I'm very pleased with you. - C.X._ "

Erik reads it three or four times in quick succession before he realises that his heart is now pounding, no longer faltering but throbbing in his chest; there’s a heady, breathless feeling flowing through him, and he tosses the book away across the bed where it slides onto the floor with a quiet thump. It’s impossible to stay lying down. He jumps up from under the bedclothes and starts to pace, tense and shaky and wholly unnerved by his own reaction to such a short note.

It’s against every rule for Charles to have communicated with him directly, no matter how innocuous the message, and Erik walks back and forth in front of his window, a hand to his mouth as he tries to crush the feeling that has come over him. On its own, the note would mean nothing, less than nothing, but he’s just spent an hour trying to understand Charles Xavier and inadvertently liking him - and then to be told Charles is _pleased_ with him - to be called _my dear_ \- 

Erik curses under his breath, confused and frustrated, and then he goes to pick up the book and sets it carefully on his nightstand once he’s checked its cover isn’t any more dishevelled than it was when it arrived.

He reads the note five more times before he goes to sleep, biting down on the inside of his lower lip, and thinks about the silk. 

He refuses to acknowledge that something so simple has left him hard and aching under the sheets.

 

~*~

 

Charles receives his bonding gift once he comes back from Prague - Emma must have delayed the courier service while he was abroad, because it comes the day after he arrives home, the cheerful woman who brings it laying the case ceremonially on the parlour table and opening it for him to take out what’s inside.

He picks up the wooden box carefully, pulling it out of its padding with curiosity, and the courier says, “Ooh, hey, that makes two unusual ones. I haven’t seen black walnut used for a gift in a couple of years, and this is my full-time job.”

The box is gorgeous, intricately carved with geometric patterns that look something like feathers, each tiny detail perfectly captured in the glossy surface. Black walnut is one of the hardest woods to carve, but if you’re skilled, and patient, it gives the most beautiful finish.

“Thank you,” Charles says, already smiling, and opens the box to find a metal puzzle ball inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, credit for Charles' note in the book goes to the lovely Subtilior, who kindly suggested it when I was looking for something along those lines :3
> 
> Furoshiki is a type of Japanese silk-wrapping which makes for beautiful presents [like so!](http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4148/5039929161_469df7c253.jpg)
> 
> And the book Charles sends Erik can be read for free online [here](http://ia600306.us.archive.org/11/items/phenomenologyofp00merl/phenomenologyofp00merl.pdf), if anyone is interested enough, but I must admit I've only read enough extracts to make the chapter work! So all mistakes are my own, not Merleau-Ponty's X3


	4. Imagine Me and You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With thanks to both Spicedpiano and Subtilior for being such wonderful betas!

The night after Erik opens the bank account he lies in bed and runs his fingers across Charles’ note over and over, smoothing the soft worn paper, until he starts to worry that the ink will smudge.

It’s weighing on his mind, the note, as it has all day, before, during and after his lunchbreak when he went down to the bank to open a new savings account; he’d thought about it all through the process, handing over his ID, then the cheque to the cashier to deposit his five thousand dollars, which he’s kept aside to cover the lawyer’s fees for his eventual divorce. He does not feel guilty about opening the account; it’s something he’s always intended, and it feels good to know his exit strategy is in place for when he’s ready to leave.

The early December wind cut through him with blistering cold as he left the bank to go back uptown to the office, after, shuffling along against the tide of the crowd on the street oohing and aahing at the holiday lights. Manhattan is already freezing cold; it’s threatening snow according to the weather report, and the tingle of the air seemed to confirm that, too, forcing icy fingers into his pockets and ducking his head against the cold. Erik can always tell when a change in the weather is coming.

Today, the charge in the atmosphere ran through his bones, making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end wherever it wasn’t covered by his scarf.

Of course, next year it might be covered by a collar, if Charles Xavier has his way.

Erik lets the book fall closed against his chest and lies back against the pillows. It’s light enough that it doesn’t cause him problems, but heavy enough that he can feel it weighing on him as he breathes in and out, trying to slow his heartbeat from where it’s racing again - ridiculous, that after three months he’s still so affected by something so small as a message from a man he’s never met. He’s read the note Charles left him in _Phenomenology of Perception_ so many times that the book automatically falls open to that page when lifted, the thickest crease in the spine aligning perfectly with the object of Erik’s consternation. For a little while he tried to leave the book in the bottom drawer of his desk, next to Mother’s collar, but it had soon come out again, only to wind up in the drawer of his nightstand, where he can take it out and stare at it late at night when he’s sure Emma’s asleep and not listening.

It’s as though Charles reached in and carefully struck Erik like he would a crystal, in the one place that would make him ring, not some brute force attempt but precise, targeted to make him sing out one pure, startled note despite himself.

What sort of man is Charles Xavier, that he would ignore the distinct possibility of pissing Emma off by contacting Erik directly and leaving such a personal message? One not given to following conventions, that’s for sure. Erik knows so little about Charles that he can’t help but draw conclusions from the smallest clues. The book is faded with age, but isn’t mildewed or stained - Charles takes care of his things. His handwriting is better when he’s writing to Erik - he cares what Erik thinks about him, the messier scrawl just for his own consumption, his raw unfiltered thoughts. He’s intelligent, that much is obvious from his annotations. And his sister loves him dearly - Erik could tell by the way she spoke about Charles that he’s not an obligation to her, or someone who is just there, but someone who has earned that love from her.

It might all be true. It might all be wrong. He has no way to know, and no reason to spend as long as he does thinking about it.

Erik shifts restlessly, discomforted by his thoughts, and his half-hard cock betrays the lie, rubbing against the sheets and stiffening further from the friction. This is worst of all, that he is still reacting like _this_ after three months, that Charles has won this physical, visceral reaction from him with twenty-four words and a set of initials. It’s humiliating, but Erik lets out a soft huff of breath and rolls his hips up to rub his growing erection against the linen, indulging in a moment of pleasure. It feels good enough that he does it again, has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from moaning.

_I’m very pleased with you._ He tries to imagine what it would sound like aloud; the thought gets tangled up in his usual fantasies of someone holding him down and taking what they want from him, someone strong enough to deserve Erik’s submission and to take it from him no matter how passionately he fights, and the combination gets him so hard he can’t help reaching down to palm himself through the bedclothes. The sensation is muffled with the comforter between his hand and his cock, but even so it’s intense, a sudden delicious burst of pleasure so wrenching that he has take his hand away and breathe for a moment, long, gasping breaths that echo in his quiet room, the book sliding off his chest and onto the bedclothes beside him with a slither of paper on cloth.

No. He won’t let Charles Xavier do this to him. Erik lies still for a minute, staring at the soft shadows on the ceiling, before lifting his hand again and sliding it under the sheets, pausing at his hipbone, reluctant and warring with himself. He can masturbate if he wants to without it being something he’s giving over to Charles, or anybody. But he can’t seem to touch himself tonight without thinking about that note, about the casual way Charles sauntered in and, with one sentence, took over everything.

Erik doesn’t want or need a Dom to complete him - to make him reliant and then get bored of him or get sick or die or any of a thousand different things that would leave Erik having given himself up to that only to have it torn away, leaving him unable to stand on his own without spending the rest of his life pining like his mother did. Erik spent too long watching his Mama waiting at the kitchen window, washing up their two plates, two glasses, two forks, watching people pass by and just _waiting_ for someone to take over for her, to help look after her and give her guidance, as much as she pretended she didn’t want it.

He is well aware that he is not the child of his mother’s bonded Dominant, and that his father - Emma’s father - seduced his mother with promises of being looked after, made her feel safe, then left her when she got pregnant, so as not to cause a scandal.

And yet - and yet -

Erik can’t stop thinking about what the sex might be like - what it might feel like to be pressed down by another body, to surrender, or even to struggle and be overwhelmed… and while he has no idea what Charles Xavier looks like, it’s him Erik imagines leaning over him on the bed and reaching to torment Erik’s nipples some more, strong fingers closing around them where they’re soft and pinching both at the same time without letting go, then bending down to take the left one in his teeth and bite -

The thought is incendiary, and impossible to ignore. The shame of it only makes him feel hotter inside his own skin, and Erik lifts his hand as though it doesn’t belong to him, strokes his palm down his chest, knuckles brushing the underside of the sheet and eyes slipping closed as he heads for his nipples; he’s experimented enough to know how to rub them, to make them sensitive before pinching them each in turn. The pleasure is exquisite, a sweet sharp pain like a live wire running from them straight to his cock, and when he pinches them again harder a second time it’s even better, magnifying the lingering soreness from the first squeeze into an aching throb.

“Oh, fuck.” Erik is breathless, gasping, and he keeps tugging on his left nipple while he slips his right hand further down under the bedclothes to take hold of his leaking cock. The sheets are already damp where the head has been rubbing up against them, smeared with his arousal. He opens his eyes and shifts against the pillows, digging in with his shoulders to give himself the support he needs to keep him propped there when he lifts his knees to plant his feet flat on the bed. The motion raises the blankets with them, tenting the sheets until he can see his own erection jutting proud and hard between his legs, curving upward towards his belly and twitching a little with the sudden inrush of colder air.

His fingers are paler than the blood-flushed skin of his cock, wrapped around the base of the shaft. In the dim light it’s easier to imagine that it’s someone else’s hand holding him, pulling upwards towards the head and drawing a groan of satisfaction from Erik’s throat as he – no, they - squeeze tight and starts to jerk him off. Someone else telling him to keep still while they tease him, quick-slow-slow, dragging the ring of their grip up and down, someone - Charles, why not Charles - ordering him not to buck -

He comes on a muffled shout, stuffing his free hand into his mouth and biting down on his knuckles to keep the sound in while come spatters his stomach and hand, hips stuttering against the mattress as he tries not to thrust into his own hand, tries to be good, tries -

When he relaxes, languid and sated, against the bed and lets his head tip to the side he can see the snow starting to fall outside of his open blinds, thick white flakes drifting silently through the midnight-blue and sodium-orange night light of the city. It’s hard to reconcile the way his body feels - brimming with satisfied pleasure, a warm ocean of contentment after climax - with the way his mind feels, salt-rimed and already winning over the post-coital urge to surrender his independence from dependence, to see if the real thing is better than he’s imagining.

Erik has his exit strategy. He can leave whenever he wants. He doesn’t need a Dominant. He doesn’t want a Dominant.

And yet -

Even though it means nothing, and can never come to anything, Erik still hasn’t told anyone about the note. For now, at least, it remains a secret between him and Charles.

 

 

~*~

 

The puzzle ball is proving more difficult than Charles had anticipated.

It’s not got a manufacturer’s mark, and given the material involved he can only assume that Erik made it himself. Charles isn’t familiar enough with different kinds of metals to be able to identify each and every one of the layers in it, but from the glimpses he gets through the latticed outer layer he’s fairly sure there are at least six, each one made of a different material. It looks old, too - someone’s polished the outer layer until it shines, but the inner layers are tarnished as though they couldn’t be reached, which suggests this isn’t something Erik made specially for Charles.

Even so, he’s pleased that it’s something so personal, something intricate Erik made with his power rather than something he’s bought, given that Erik has no intention of staying in the bond. It must have taken a lot of time, and skill, and patience, to craft a puzzle like this. Charles has taken to carrying it around with him to work on in quiet moments between students and meetings, turning it over and over in his hands until the metal is warm from his touch. It fits well into the cradle of his palm, baseball-sized and heavy enough to use as a paperweight.

The office is quiet on Friday afternoons, especially when it’s snowy outside - the campus is covered in a blanket of white, and it’s still falling, the footprints left by the few students diligent enough to come in filled as quickly as they’re made, transitory and ghostlike. Charles doesn’t mind the long wade to the subway station later. It’s lovely when the weather is like this, crisp and wintry, and the quiet makes it easier to hear himself think instead of having to exert effort to keep out all the other minds in school. It also makes it easier to hear Hank coming along the corridor, the distinctive noise his feet make against the tiles accompanying the frenetic buzz of his thoughts, and Charles looks up from the puzzle with eyebrows already raised. It’s rare for Hank to venture over to PoliSci personally instead of calling. “Come in,” he calls out before Hank can spend the next five minutes dithering about, deciding whether or not to come in and bother Charles.

There’s a mental exclamation mark of surprise from outside, but then the door handle creaks and presses down, the door swinging open so that Hank can tentatively come into the room.

He’s snow-matted and bedraggled-looking after the walk over from Mutant Studies, his blue fur sticking out in spikes from his head and face like a cat who’s taken an unwanted bath. Charles has to try very hard not to laugh, because while it _is_ funny, Hank would be hurt if he thought Charles was making fun of his mutation. He’s a sensitive soul, and Charles imagines any Dom who ends up bonded to Hank is going to have to do a lot of reassuring. “Would you like a towel?” he asks instead, keeping his reaction down to a simple smile, and puts the puzzle ball down on his desk. “I have a fresh-washed one in my gym bag you’re welcome to.”

Hank shakes his head, scattering little water droplets. “No, thank you. I’ll just get static-y. I do hope I’m not disturbing you.” He comes to stand in front of Charles’ desk like a child waiting to be chastised for interrupting the nothing Charles was doing and rests his hands on the back of the chair, clutching a little. “I forgot I hadn’t rung you until I was halfway here, I just got distracted - ”

“No, no, not at all, Hank. It’s good to see you! You know you can always come and see me, you don’t have to apologise.”

Hank adjusts his glasses, nose crinkling with a self-deprecating smile. “I don’t like to take your time away from your real work. I’m not one of your students.”

“I rather think you are, since I’m the faculty lead for mutants.” Without his really thinking about it Charles’ hand has already migrated back to pick up the puzzle ball again, and it rattles gently in his hand, layer against layer, his thumb rubbing across the delicate pattern. “I consider our work together to be real work too, you know. I assume it’s about Cerebro? Are you ready to run some more tests?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.” Hank makes a valiant attempt to be nonchalant, but it fails utterly, the strength of his enthusiasm bleeding through into his voice and shouting out from his mind. “Obviously if you’re busy - ”

Charles gets up from his seat, wiping his hands on his thighs and gesturing absently for Hank to stop worrying. “No, not at all. My last appointment didn’t show, so I was just working on a puzzle while I waited and lost track of the time.” He shrugs his cardigan over his shoulders and pats his pockets to check for his keys and wallet - both present - before coming out from behind his desk to fetch his coat from the back of the door.

“Oh? Do you want any help? I’m pretty good at puzzles.” Hank’s gaze has already fallen on the ball on Charles’ desk, brain switching tracks to curiosity about its design.

Before Hank can reach for it, though, Charles steps around him and picks it up himself, dropping it into the deep pocket of his cardigan and smiling disarmingly to cover the flash of possessiveness that made him almost want to strike Hank for thinking about touching Charles’ property. He feels ashamed almost immediately after, because Hank didn’t mean any harm - but the puzzle, and by extension Erik, is _his._ Nobody else gets to touch him. “This is one I need to solve for myself, Hank, but thank you,” he says instead, as mildly as he can, and waves Hank toward the door. “Shall we?”

He pulls his coat on while they head for the exit to the quad, but he can still feel the weight of the puzzle in his pocket knocking gently against the bone of his hip as he walks, like a promise.

By the time they get into the Mutant Studies building - it’s to the side of the main campus block, a five-minute walk in normal conditions but more like ten with the snow thick on the ground - Hank is as bedraggled or worse than he was when he came into Charles’ office, and Charles himself isn’t much better, cheeks flushed with the warmth of the inside air compared to the crisp chill outside. They head for the lifts and Hank fishes his basement key from the pocket of his lab coat, inserting it into the lock and hitting the button for the sublevel where Cerebro is housed.

“I’ve been doing some work on the calibrations, I think it should run much more smoothly now,” Hank says as they descend, brushing absentmindedly at the clotted fur on his face with his claws. “I’m really hoping it might have extended your range, since it should make the connection a lot easier for you. Though without another telepath to test it on it might just be applicable to you, rather than of general use.”

Charles grins, rocking back and forth on his heels. “I’m sure it’s fine.” The doors open and he steps out, leading the way down the corridor and pausing at the door to their lab to let the high-tech scanner image his iris and confirm his identity. “Either way, you’re making marvellous progress, Hank. I’m really just the operating system in this scenario, so you tell me what you need from me and I’ll do my best.”

“Okay.” Hank pauses, too, to scan his own eye. “I was thinking first we could just see how it feels? Then we can try some of the standard test exercises.”

“Fine by me,” Charles says, heading for the platform at the middle of the room.

There’s an array of sensors arranged in a dome around Cerebro’s central point, just wide enough apart from one another for Charles to slip through; the room itself is very utilitarian, little more than concrete walls painted to make it look less like a prison and benches around the edges to hold their equipment. It’s not homey, but then Charles knows the treat that comes from putting on the helmet.

“Testing, testing. Experimental recording started,” Hank is saying from his station outside the dome, and Charles reaches for the headpiece, tugging it easily into place over his hair. “Alright, Charles, I’m going to turn it on.”

“Go ahead,” Charles says, and braces himself.

They run through a series of standardised tests - how far can he sense, how many people at once (impossible for him to count, but somehow the machine records it straight from his mind), how does it feel, is it easier, harder, is it having any effect on his mental state. Charles reports his usual mild euphoria, and just concentrates on filling the experimental criteria. Then Hank asks him to try and find a specific person whose mind he recognises but whose location he does not presently know, and with the puzzle ball warming a spot against his thigh and tormenting him with its impossibility Charles immediately thinks, before he can stop himself, of Erik.

Without Cerebro the flavour Emma had given him of Erik’s mind wouldn’t have been enough to find him in a sea of thoughts the size of Manhattan, but within the dome, thinking is doing. Charles has already found him before he’s finished thinking it, only wrenches himself away at the last possible moment so that he gains a snapshot image of Erik’s thoughts, no more; enough to have an impression of industriousness, of concentration and a spike of awareness like a question mark as Erik - Erik _senses him back_ , of course he’d be sensitive to telepathy after living with Emma -

“Yes, fine, Raven’s at home watching television,” Charles says instead of mentioning this to Hank, redirecting his attention while projecting a mild illusion to prevent Hank from noticing the new blush of embarrassment in his cheeks and asking him if he feels alright. “She was supposed to be out installing one of her pieces, it must have been cancelled.”

“Good, next test,” Hank says, oblivious, and they move on.

Charles spends the next few days studying that snapshot of Erik over and over, like an accidental photograph of somebody’s elbow, an ear, a fragment of face - hinting at a whole that is not yet revealed. How he’s going to hold out until September Charles has no idea, because the more he gets of Erik the more he wants, with a fierce possessive urge to Dominate that both scares and excites him.

And he still needs to solve the damn puzzle.

 

 

~*~

 

It’s quiet now, but Erik still listens for a long while, head tilted to one side as he waits to see if he senses whatever it was that had disturbed him again. It felt a lot like when Emma tries to reach him from too great a distance, but though he waits for a text, nothing comes through.

Huh.

Bemused, he gets back to work, frowning as he picks up his pen. It was probably nothing. She’ll call if it’s important.

 

 

~*~

 

On the eighth of December Erik fetches the mail on his way upstairs after work, a handful of envelopes and a small parcel for Moira that he flicks through while he walks up. He prefers to stretch his legs after the long cramped journey in the subway, and since nobody else uses the stairs he is free to check through the mail without worrying about running into anyone as he climbs. His feet know the way.

Two are obviously bills, a third probably some sort of marketing, but the other four look like Christmas cards, stiff and odd-sized among the rest. And one of them -

Erik pauses on the landing, frowning at the cream-coloured envelope in his hand. It’s full of metal. Feels like sheet copper, very thin and embossed. Unexpected. Intrigued, he glances at the address on the front, which says it’s for Emma and Moira, but the moment he looks at the handwriting Erik’s grip tightens.

After so long spent staring at that damn book there’s no way Erik could mistake Charles Xavier’s elegant copperplate, the one he uses when he wants to impress.

It’s not even a fight. The card isn’t addressed to him, but Erik rips the envelope open anyway, forcing his thumb under the flap and tearing upwards until he can see copper glinting from inside the creamy paper and can pull the card out into the stark electric light of the stairwell. The copper is a thin sheet glued to thick card stock, embossed with a large four-pointed star, the top surface blued and the copper only showing around the impressed outline and the rays coming from the star to the border of the card, except in rough spackles where the blue has worn through. It’s very nice work, only a few uneven edges to show it was made by hand and not a machine - unless you have Erik’s powers, which let him feel the hesitation marks and difference in depth between different parts.

Inside the card is more of Charles’ handwriting, in blue ink, this time, to match the outside of the card.

 

 

> _Dear Emma and Moira,_
> 
>  
> 
> _I hope you have a wonderful holiday season and a joyful New Year!_
> 
>  
> 
> _I would normally say that we must spend more time together in the coming year than we have this, but given that Raven would beat me half to death if I interfered in our interfamilial proceedings, please accept my best wishes and I shall instead look forward to our next scheduled (and chaperoned, no doubt) meeting!_
> 
>  
> 
> _Love, Charles_
> 
>  
> 
> _(and Raven, of course, who made this lovely card. If it wouldn’t be considered interfering, she would love you to come to her next exhibition on the 17th January at the 9th Street Gallery. Don’t tell her I told you.)_

 

 

 

Erik looks at the card for a long time, feeling oddly cheated that there is no mention of him whatsoever, other than the vague references to their engagement. He lets it fall closed, and tucks it back into its envelope before slowly continuing up the stairs.

“Hmm,” is all Emma says when he hands it to her, but her mouth twitches even as she puts it on the mantelpiece in pride of place, tweaking it until the copper catches the light at its most beautiful.

“What?”

She rolls her eyes, looking at him sidelong over her shoulder. “Stop sulking, honey. It might be addressed to me, but Charles usually gets his cards from the stationers, or forgets entirely until after the holiday. He certainly never gets his sister to handmake them out of metal. Or sends them in time for Hanukkah.”

“Oh,” says Erik, dumbly.

Emma laughs, wagging the torn envelope at him. “By the way, it’s a federal offence to open someone else’s mail.”

“So arrest me,” Erik says, but his heart’s not in it, and Emma only smiles and cups her hand against his face before leaning up to kiss his cheek. “Only nine months to go, sugar. Even you can wait that long.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagine Erik's puzzle ball to be some sort of cross between [this Hanayama puzzle](http://www.puzzleguru.com/buy/hanayama-equa-puzzle.htm) and [this Chinese puzzle ball](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2rHEMsbN8Hs/T-DlyVIQ9gI/AAAAAAAAGVc/3nmOkycYqcc/s1600/Puzzle+ball+late+18th+C..jpg).
> 
> And Charles' card to Emma and Moira looks [something like this](http://scrapngrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Vintage-Holiday-Metal-Embossed-Christmas-Card.jpg)!


	5. For you it's a matter of blood and connections

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With thanks to Subtilior for a swift and thorough beta!

January is even colder than December, and without Christmas to look forward to it’s miserable, too, enough that Charles, like many New Yorkers, spends most of his time outside hurrying from building to building as quickly as possible without falling over in the ever-present slush, a hot cup of coffee clutched in one hand and his head bent into the wind. The puzzle ball in his pocket seems to absorb the cold the moment he steps into the open air, and takes hours to warm up, still freezing to the touch even long after he reaches his office in the morning or home at night.

He hasn’t solved it all, but Charles refuses to believe it’s anything but a matter of time. He spends less time actively trying to tease it apart and more time contemplating the puzzle now, trying to think his way through Erik’s layers to unlock them. The ball is smaller now, anyway, the first two layers set aside on the shelf above his desk in his office, like the dissected peel and pith of an orange. The fine iron latticework on the outermost had opened, eventually, with firm pressure applied to four carefully-sprung points. The second layer had required a careful twist, pull and twist motion that it had taken him nearly a month to figure out, so well-hidden was the seam in the metal. There are four more layers that he hasn’t figured out yet, elaborately formed and resisting his ingenuity, but he’ll get there, eventually.

Charles is nothing if not patient.

Raven has been incredibly busy with her gallery opening, so since Christmas they’ve been living in their city apartment instead of out at the Westchester house, to reduce the commute and give her more time to work on getting everything perfectly right. They’d live there all the time if it hadn’t used to be Kurt’s main hideaway. Charles hasn’t got around, yet, to finding somewhere new. If the old bastard were still alive Charles could probably stare him down even without the use of his telepathy, now that he’s full-grown, but since he never got the chance, his memories of Kurt are still frozen at age twelve, when he’d had to assert himself almost hourly to even be treated as a Dom, and been beaten almost daily for his pains.

He had it redecorated two years ago after Mother finally passed, but even so it still carries the phantom smell of cigar smoke.

“Yes, I’m on my way,” he says to Raven down the phone as he takes the last few steps down the stairwell, shoes clattering in the quiet. “I’ll be there in half an hour, unless every cab in New York has passengers, and even then, I’ll just walk. Stop worrying.”

“Of course I’m worrying,” Raven snaps, but moderates her tone after Charles’ warning _hmm_ , continuing more calmly, “you know I always worry when I’m opening a new collection. There are all these people here! What if they don’t like it? What if they think it’s all terrible, and I’m terrible, and I never sell anything ever again?”

Charles nods at the doorman on his way out, and winces at the sudden arctic chill as the wind hits him; it’s like being hit by a train of pure cold, icy and damp, promising sleet. He ducks his head automatically to keep his chin in his scarf, though he straightens it as soon as he masters the flinch, just tugs the scarf higher with two leather-gloved fingers so he can keep his proper posture. “Then you’ll live off your trust fund like every other rich baby sister in New York.”

Raven squawks, indignant. “It’s not about the money!”

“I know, I know. I was teasing. And you know full well everyone is going to love it. They always do.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just come here and be my moral support,” Raven says against the hubbub of background noise around her, and hangs up without saying goodbye. Charles snorts and puts his phone into his coat pocket, then steps up to the curb and raises his hand to hail a taxi.

By the time he gets to the gallery the show has been open for a good hour, and despite all the other minds in there he can feel Raven fretting inside the building even without dipping in to see what she’s thinking specifically, her mutable, lively energy tumultuous and tangled up in itself. _< <Calm down,_>> he says, pulling a few notes from his wallet to pay the driver. << _It feels busy in there, and positive. People are enjoying themselves. Trust me, I’m a telepath._ >>

<< _You could be lying,_ >> Raven thinks back, but he can feel her relax a little now he’s there, reassured. It’s good to know he can be a big brother to her like this at least some of the time. She’s usually so independent. << _Your future in-laws are here. You didn’t tell me you invited them!_ >>

Oh - _he’d_ almost forgotten he had invited Emma and Moira too, except not really. His pulse speeds a little, thudding in his throat as he looks up at the fashionable building, then crosses the street and pushes open the swing door, past the gallery staff who take his coat and wave him right through.

<< _Emma is very influential,_ >> he says, distractedly, << _having her here will make people take notice._ >> Emma isn’t his focus, though. Charles reaches out and scans the crowd with a hope he can barely quash, knowing all the time it’s silly, but though he touches each mind in turn, assessing and quickly turning away, he doesn’t find the one he wants.

There are people congregated on the stairs, champagne glasses and canapés in hand, discussing Raven’s work, and normally he would take note of what they say to repeat to her later, but he’s distracted as he climbs upward around them, still searching and coming up empty. When he reaches the long, stylishly bare-brick room at the top of the building he barely even registers the exposed beamwork and tall windows that frame Raven’s art, coming up empty on every front.

Erik didn’t come. Not that he really thought he would, but he had thought maybe… well, perhaps fantasised that maybe…

Charles feels Emma before he sees her, stood waiting for him just to one side, her arms crossed under her breasts and her own glass dangling carelessly from her fingertips while she raises one eyebrow in sardonic displeasure, pale as ice and pristinely cold. “Of course he didn’t,” she says. Her face is calm, but he can feel the irritation radiating from her, the pointed tip of her shoe tapping against the floorboards. “Even Erik wouldn’t go against a direct order from me, and I told him in no uncertain terms to stay home. How dare you try and slip him a date under my nose.”

Charles pauses before he answers, smothering his reaction. “Good evening to you too. I hope you’re enjoying Raven’s show.”

“Just because I said you would be good for each other, and encouraged you to plan to win him over, doesn’t mean you have carte blanche to ignore all propriety and make a scandal of him,” she says, ignoring the pleasantry. “You know very well that if there’s any talk of your meeting before you’re bonded it will have serious ramifications for both of you.” 

Emma actually scowls, her brow creasing with the expression, and that’s more startling than her ire, that she has let the expression out in public, where anyone might see it and interpret it as her being in less than perfect control. “I know you’re far from oblivious, Charles,” she says, “so don’t push me. You might be able to out-Dom me, and if you ever expect me to say that again I will hurt you, but I am in control of this process where Erik is concerned, and I can take him away as easily as I can give him to you.”

Charles can sense Raven off to one side of the gallery, talking to one of the patrons; quietly he encourages her to stay over there for the time being, nothing forceful, just enough to keep her away while he talks to Emma. That done, he tilts his head briefly, ceding the right of first welcome to Emma, who, after a moment, returns the gesture. 

“That was never my intention,” Charles says, deflecting one or two of his acquaintances from approaching him just yet with quick bursts of subtle power. “I’m sorry if you thought so - it was an honest gesture towards you and Moira, nothing more. As for the fact I was looking - well, surely you can’t blame me for looking, given that I’m to be bonded to Erik? I won’t deny I’m curious, and I did wonder if he might not come anyway, to size me up. If I’d found him here, I would have been sorely tempted to at least take a look. But I do have some self-control, Emma. A scandal would only be more likely to drive Erik further away, not draw him closer, quite aside from the political disgrace of me violating the Enclosure rules. I know I’m not allowed to see him.”

“Don’t try that on me. It was deliberate. You wanted to see what he would do.”

“Don’t you?” Charles asks, and shrugs. “You told me to win him over, Emma. I’m just playing your game.”

Emma’s mood is a queer mix of mollified and irritated, and she thinks rather than says, << _You are sickening, Charles. Don’t kid yourself that you’re not getting just as involved. If I’d known the two of you would end up mooning over one another like this…_ _well, it almost makes me want to shove you in a locker myself._ >>

<< _I’d like to see you try it,_ >> Charles thinks back, smiling benignly, but what he’s really thinking, deeper where she can’t see, is _Erik’s mooning over me?_ His heart is thumping for a different reason, now, stomach clenching in hidden pleasure. The thought is intoxicating, especially given that he’s still been expecting someone who doesn’t want anything to do with him. That his little tweaks and gestures might be working - 

Emma snorts, clearly not fooled for a moment. “Men!” she retorts, and rolls her eyes heavenwards before taking his arm, hooking her hand into his elbow and tugging him away to look at the first of Raven’s pieces. “At least you look good in a suit, darling. Though you’re a tad overdressed.”

“You should see me in a tux,” Charles says, letting her move him. “I suppose this is what’s commonly worn for doing the housework, then?” He gestures at the floor-length white knit dress Emma’s wearing, cabled and thick, but clinging to every inch of her like a glove. It leaves her arms bare from the shoulders, only the leather of her bonding bracelet to adorn her.

A smile, and a flash of teeth. “This old thing? Only for taking out the trash.”

They contemplate the first of Raven’s pieces, an enormous oil painting of two figures sat out on a balcony looking at the city, normal in appearance until you notice the one’s tail coiled around the leg of their chair, the other’s catlike pupils half-glowing in the dim light. “She’s as activist as I am, in her own way,” Charles says, turning his head to look at Raven where she’s talking to a journalist now, enthusiastic and brightly sparkling with energy as she talks about her work. “Mutation out in the open, in normal scenes, the extraordinary made ordinary.”

“She has an eye for detail,” Emma says, as they walk to the next canvas, a wooden-skinned man waiting to exit the subway. “Unsurprising, given her mutation. Erik liked the card, by the way.”

“Oh?” Charles asks, nonchalant, pretending to examine the fine texture of the subway man’s cheeks and leafy hair. “I just wrote in it and put it in the envelope, I hardly noticed what was on it. Raven wanted to try some new techniques.”

“You’re a terrible liar.” 

“Only when I want to be.”

Emma smiles. “Touché. Now, I should go and spend some time with my bonded. Will I be seeing you at the Psionics Ball in March?”

Charles shakes his head, and lets go of her arm. “No, I’m in Toronto that weekend, doing a lecture for U of T’s _Diversity_ series. I’m not sure how many students will come on a Saturday night, but I’m assured they will, so.”

“Shame.” Emma flicks her long hair back over her shoulder and gesturing towards the back wall of the gallery. “I liked the one Raven did of you, sugar. Tell her if she’ll consider it I’d be happy to commission a painting myself.”

“Of me?” Charles asks, incredulous.

Emma laughs, patting his cheek with the flat of her fingers. “Of course not you! I don’t need to be staring at you on my wall all the time thinking about you shtupping my little brother. Or, rather, you getting shtupped by Erik. As you so kindly corrected me in the cafe last year.”

“Go keep Moira company before I do it myself,” Charles says, and Emma mock-hisses playfully, hands curled into claws, then bends forward as though to bite him, only turning it into a kiss on the cheek at the last moment.

“Stay away from Erik until I say so,” she says into his ear, and swans off, the elegant line of her throat exposed as she casts about the room for a server and a fresh tray of champagne.

 

~*~

 

“Remind me why I’m coming to this again?” Erik asks, shifting his foot from the brake to the accelerator and pushing the car back into motion. March rain is streaking the windshield, smearing the traffic lights into a long run of green before the wiper sweeps it away, the city around them buzzing with people despite the weather. The bowtie is tight and distracting, but better that than wearing a sub’s shirt and leaving his bare throat exposed for gawkers. The tuxedo is new, sleek and black, bought for him under duress since he’s always managed to avoid these functions before.

Beside him Emma is wrapped in furs the way she always is when she can get away with it, her cream-coloured ballgown bundled carefully around her legs in the passenger’s footwell. Leaning against the leather seat of his Lexus, she looks like a queen riding in state, the seatbelt around her body barely marring the image. “You’re coming because I asked you,” she says, turning to look at him instead of at the road, the diamonds studding her ears sparkling in the reflected light. “These are people you’ll probably see more of, once you’re bonded to Charles. Since Moira’s usually subjected to these without getting any direct benefit, you might as well make yourself a familiar face and get something out of it.”

“Hmm.” The traffic is all stop-and-start, and if it weren’t for Emma’s insistence on Erik driving he wouldn’t have bothered taking the car out of the garage. The whole damn thing is infuriating. “Don’t we run the risk, then, of Charles himself being there? If these are your mutual acquaintances. Perhaps I should just drop you off and go home.”

“Perhaps you should do as I say and behave. Charles is in Toronto this weekend. I checked.”

“Doing what?”

They come to a halt at another set of lights, and Emma reaches out and flicks him in the ear, startling a grunt out of Erik - it stings, especially with her fingernails turned to diamond to match her earrings. “None of your business yet,” she says sweetly, “especially after thinking so loudly about sneaking down to that gallery in January. The invitation was for Moira and me, not you, and you know full well that’s against the rules. Though your eagerness is noted and adorable.”

“You hypocrite. I know full well you and Moira arranged your own bonding and just got Uncle Bruno to sign off on it like it was his idea.”

“Since Father was already dead, I could hardly ask Mother, and heaven forbid I ask Aunt Lily,” Emma says, examining her nails as though Erik’s ear might somehow have scratched them. “It’s my prerogative as your older sister to be a hypocrite, darling, and stop you from making my mistakes.”

They move forward again, and in the distance Erik can see the valet waiting outside the ballroom under an enormous golf umbrella, helping people out of their cars. “Bullshit. It all worked out just the way you wanted.”

Emma smiles like the Cheshire cat - he can hear it in her voice even though he’s watching the road. “Well of course it did, Moira is a tactical genius and I’m very good at manipulating people into doing what I want. It did help that we were considerably younger than you are now, and that we’d gone to school together. If we’d been caught it would have been put down to young love and left at that. You and Charles have never met before, and you’re old enough to know better than to break the rules like that. You’ve left bonding rather later than most, and messing it up now would only make people wonder if maybe there’s a reason for that that isn’t you being stubborn.”

Erik turns his head briefly to scowl at her. “There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to get bonded. There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“Erik, sugar, I know that.” Emma lifts her hand to his face, this time cupping his cheek instead of flicking him, soft instead of hard. “If you change your mind now I’ll call the whole thing off and you can stay unbonded forever if you want to. But if you want to go through with this then I’m going to make sure you do it right.” She undoes her seatbelt and tugs him towards her, pulling his head down so she can plant a kiss on his cheek, though he resists as much as he can, keeping his eyes on the car in front to make sure they don’t run into the back of it. “Now, be a nice boy and come to the party with me and make me look good like a pretty little submissive accessory, all right?”

“Only one of us in this car turns into a giant piece of jewellery, and it isn’t me,” Erik says, and yelps despite himself at the pain when Emma moves her grip to his ear and pinches, Erik batting uselessly at her hand to try and dislodge it. Somehow he still manages to pull up beside the valet’s stand without running the man down, and puts the car into neutral with his head still held at an awkward angle, earlobe caught between Emma’s talons.

The valet opens his door, face carefully blank as he takes in the scene, and finally Emma lets go, checking her nails again, presumably for blood. Once deemed acceptably clean, she starts to gather together her dress, bundling the skirts a little so they won’t drag on the floor. “Don’t make me give you a piercing.”

“Pretty sure I’m supposed to be delivered to Xavier in mint condition.”

Emma says, “A little bit of wear and tear around the edges shouldn’t pose a problem,” and opens her own door before the valet is all the way around the car with the umbrella, swinging her feet out onto the pavement with consummate grace and slipping out into the night air.

The Plaza Hotel is lit up outside with a soft yellow light that makes it look dreamlike, and even Erik is impressed as he hands over the keys to his car and, rolling his eyes, offers his arm to Emma once she reaches his side. She tries to persuade him to step a little behind her, properly submissive, but Erik digs in his heels at this last and so she sighs longsufferingly, taking his arm, and they walk in side-by-side under the canopied entrance and into the hotel foyer, which is full - even Erik can tell - with psychics.

There’s a certain feeling in the air that he associates with Emma when she’s stretching her powers; the entire place feels electric, his scalp prickling under his hair like a storm coming. Some of the people turning towards them look like anybody else, but there are a few more obvious mutants among them, too, some of whom Erik vaguely recognises from functions Emma has dragged him to in the past. He doesn’t bother trying to shield himself - with this many psionics in the building there’s no chance it would work anyway, even if any of them were interested enough to go for a rummage.

He hates these sorts of functions with a passion, but Emma is in her element, a swarm of her admirers trailing them like the tail of a comet as she tugs Erik towards the thickest crowd, just outside the entrance to the ballroom proper. Only half of what she’s saying is spoken aloud, and it makes it almost impossible to follow her conversation. Instead, Erik occupies himself with looking too intimidating for small talk and thinking about the latest project to cross his desk at work, a skyscraper due to go up in London.

“Yes, absolutely,” someone is saying in the middle of the busiest group of people, the sun around which the rest of them orbit, listening intently - the sense of concentration is palpable, and Erik assumes for a moment that he only hears the voice in an English accent because he’s thinking so hard about the project, but then Emma freezes at his side, her nails digging into his arm, and she says, angrier than he’s heard her in a while, “What the hell is he _doing_ here?”

Erik automatically looks, using his height advantage to scan the crowd around them. “Who?”

“ _Charles_ ,” Emma spits, and in the middle of the circle of people one short, ruffle-haired man’s head snaps up with the sharp attention of a hunting dog, pausing mid-sentence although he is the centre of conversation. Incredibly blue eyes meet Erik’s like a shock of cold water, and there’s a sudden sense of a great and powerful attention focused entirely and overwhelmingly on Erik, something invisible and infinitely strong, that had been hidden in a room full of psychics only by dint of being all-encompassing, an ocean Erik hadn’t realised he was swimming in that has suddenly noticed his presence.

He sees rather than hears Charles Xavier mouth, _Erik,_ his face pale and freckled, chestnut hair, short, but broad-shouldered in a sleek tuxedo, stocky in the best way - 

<< _Erik,_ >> he hears in his head, a voice that sounds shocked and delighted and worried all at once, before Emma physically grabs him with shining hands, and a wall of diamond cuts the voice off with a slam.


	6. I've got a vision and planning permission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was made immeasurably better by the efforts of Subtilior and Spicedpiano, who might leave me feeling like I've been mugged but always in a good way.
> 
> Apologies for the delay in replying to comments on last chapter - Christmas rather got in the way!

Charles only catches a single searing glimpse of Erik staring back at him, eyes wide and electric, a crackle of connection between them like being struck by lightning. Then, before he can do anything more than mouth Erik’s name, Emma grabs Erik and puts herself in the middle, immediately setting her back to Charles to block his line of sight and telepathically shielding herself and Erik and snapping the link between Erik and Charles. 

The backlash of the broken connection makes Charles’ head ring. There’s a split second where it’s intensely painful - Charles staggers, only just keeping himself from shouting in protest out loud right in the middle of the crowd, and he takes one futile step forward before he can stop himself. The pain passes after a moment, leaving him gasping. He can still feel Erik’s stunned, fierce mind against his own; the look in his eyes had been - 

People are staring at him, perplexed, overly close and claustrophobic in their bright-coloured gowns and dark suits, and Charles recalls himself suddenly, shaking his head and clearing his throat. 

The ones who had been starting to turn to see where he was staring turn back to him at the sound. Charles lets his mouth twitch into a rueful smile. “Sorry,” he says without raising his voice, and his fingers twitch at his side, encouraging the crowd to turn their attention back to him with a subtle tug from his mind - gentle, gentle, so as not to let the other psionics notice. “I thought I saw an old colleague of mine, but I was mistaken.”

Once he has their attention, though, he’s not entirely sure what to do with it. He’s still too distracted by Emma’s figure behind them, jagged and shining under the electric light. Facets of her transparent body are reflecting black fabric and pale skin, and just visible past her shoulder is the top of a bowed head: Erik is listening to his sister, auburn hair slicked a little into place. 

Charles’ whole body feels electrified, all of his muscles ready to move, to stride across the room and take control. He can’t look away even now he has the crowd’s attention, though he knows he should. “We were talking about the university’s psionic research, weren’t we?”

The girl at his elbow – Jean, her name’s Jean, Jean Grey - nods. “Yes, I wanted to ask about how to get involved.”

“Well, it’s not my department, but I could put you in touch with the team lead,” Charles says, and picks up the thread of his conversation where he left off. It only takes some of his attention to maintain, leaving the rest of his mind free to dwell obsessively over Erik. What on Earth is Erik doing at the Psionics Ball? Erik’s a mutant, yes, but metalbending is a physical talent, not a psychic one. He keeps talking normally, but Charles is only more baffled the longer he thinks about it; he shifts on his feet, desperate to meet those eyes again, but Emma is still hiding Erik from him, and Erik isn’t looking back. 

Emma twists and glares at him over her shoulder, but when she turns Charles can only look at Erik, the strong line of his profile revealed in full.

“Professor?” Jean asks, sounding concerned. 

Her voice breaking his focus and Charles startles, then, realising he’s fallen silent again, he turns back to her and puts on his best apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, I got lost in my own head. Where was I?”

“You were talking about the telepathic brainwave patterns they’ve been finding?”

“Oh. Yes.” It doesn’t seem very important any more, and something in him snaps. “I’m terribly sorry, but I - please excuse me,” Charles says, and pushes himself free of the crowd, the circle breaking open like he’s punctured it from the inside, a huddle of astonished voices left behind that he ignores. His shoes click precisely on the marble floor, hands straightening his bowtie and then tucking nonchalantly into his pants pockets, rumpling the hem of his jacket, in control, _Dominant_ , in case Erik is looking.

It’s a stretch, blocking people’s attention when there are so many psionic mutants in the room, but it’s manageable; Charles stretches out his mind and lays it over them gently, diverting their minds from paying any attention to him or to Emma and Erik. There are a few smaller groups of people in his way, but he steps around them without even noticing, moving steadily towards his target and trying to make it look effortless and unconcerned.

Then Erik looks up over Emma’s shoulder and their eyes meet again.

Charles feels it like a blow to the chest, his heart faltering before it races. It’s only an echo of that earlier connection, but it’s there even through Emma’s blocking, Erik’s shock almost overwhelming underneath the way he looks at Charles like he’s looking for answers; his expression is rebellious even as he takes Charles in, gaze flicking over his face and body, pausing on his eyes, his shoulders, his crotch. The hot and sudden swell of attraction and reluctant desire in Erik’s mind makes Charles nearly trip, only keeping his stride by sheer force of will. He looks back, can’t help it, but makes sure it shows in his eyes and watches Erik shudder.

“Emma,” he says to her back, once he’s getting close enough to be heard over the noise. “Good evening.”

Emma’s whole body tenses even further in reaction to his voice. “Charles.” She spins on her heel to put herself between them again, but now that they’re closer she’s not enough to hide Erik from Charles, not nearly enough. “Don’t you dare - ”

Impossible to obey, even had he been less Dominant than Emma and subject to her will. Charles stares, drinking in the sight of the man he’s to be bonded to, as he’s taken in in return. Erik is tall. Narrow-waisted and long-legged. Handsome, very, and Charles imagines how it will feel to bear him down, to win him over and earn his submission, like leashing a tiger on the finest of threads. He’s - Erik’s got his chin high, defiant, shoulders squared and rigid, making himself bigger and staring Charles down with only the parted line of his lips to soften his defiance. Then all of a sudden he turns his back to Charles, still stood straight and proud, his arms folded across his chest so his hands are hidden. The back of his neck, by contrast, is incongruously vulnerable, left exposed by his neatly-trimmed hair and the low collar of his tux. The thought of him collared makes Charles’ mouth run dry. God, he’s half hard in his pants.

“ _What did I just say,_ ” Emma snaps, and this time her finger jabs right against the notch of Charles’ collarbone, bruisingly strong. He snatches his gaze away from Erik and onto her, catching her eye and holding it. 

Emma doesn’t back down, just glares right back, eyes startlingly blue in her crystalline face. “Don’t you dare look at him, Charles Xavier, not after breaking your promise to me and lying to my face - ”

Charles’ brows draw together into a frown. “I’m as surprised to see Erik as you are to see me. How was I supposed to know you’d be bringing him? You always bring Moira!”

“ _You_ said you weren’t coming!” Emma thrusts her finger forward again, so hard it nearly rocks him back on his heels. “You told me you were in Toronto this weekend, and yet here you are - ”

“Azazel and Raven are dating again at the moment, and he offered me a lift there and back.” She’d better not unravel his bowtie, it had taken him ages to fasten correctly in the first place. “You’re the one who brought Erik to one of my haunts. I didn’t realise, or else I’d have stayed home.” 

Then Erik says, “It’s clearly an accident, Emma.” He doesn’t turn, but the first sound of his voice makes Charles want him even more, a rich baritone, controlled and masculine. “Let it go.”

Charles swallows, throat tight, but keeps his eyes on Emma’s without breaking the contact - she is going to back down first, no matter how long he has to keep it up. “You know how seriously I take Enclosure,” he says, “but there’s no way for me to unsee your brother. I’m not sure what you expect me to do. As it is, I’m keeping anyone else from noticing us, which is far from easy in a room this full of psionics.”

Behind him there’s a great rise of voices - they must be asking people into the ballroom for the start of the dinner, other groups moving past their little tableau, chatting to one another and completely oblivious to the tension in this seemingly unoccupied space.

“I’m hoping to see quite a lot more of him, eventually,” Charles says after a long pause. He doesn’t turn to look, though he desperately wants to. There’s barely anything separating Charles from Erik, who now has a face, a voice, and a body to go with the puzzle. Nor does he allow himself to think of Erik naked, even though he has so much more material to work with now. God. “After September, it’ll hardly matter. So as long as nobody but us knows this happened, we can chalk it up to experience and keep it to ourselves.”

There’s a moment where he suspects he’s said the wrong thing, but then Emma, finally, relents.

She lets out a silent huff of displeasure, then shifts back into her human form, frown lines appearing on her forehead once she’s flexible enough to scowl. “If we or you leave now, people will comment,” she says, firm and pointed, and lets her finger drop away from Charles’ chest. “Stay away from us this evening, and we’ll write this off as an accident. But if anyone here noticed, there is going to be some serious talk about this bond and my control over this process and my family. I would be forced to break contract to save face. Neither of us wants that.”

Charles nods, gravely serious. “Agreed. And for the record, I didn’t see anyone I wasn’t supposed to. I just greeted an old friend.”

“I don’t even want to be here, let alone pay attention to who you speak to,” Erik says from behind his sister, head turning a little like he can’t quite help it. The pale ginger of his eyelashes is silhouetted against the background at that angle, just a hint of green iris. His voice has a slight rasp to it, like he’s working hard to control his tone.

“You look lovely tonight,” Charles says, and waits a beat before finishing, “Emma,” earning a scowl from her and a shift of posture from Erik, whose mouth firms into a tight line that makes Charles think of defiance, a creature to be tamed - though by Erik’s reaction, certainly not with compliments. Good to know. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go apologise to the lovely Miss Grey for abandoning her,” he continues.

Erik stiffens at that. Jealous, then, already, and Charles feeds that to the little flame of arousal and longing in his chest that says, _I can have you, if I can only find the right key._ When he walks away he makes sure to keep himself casual, hands still in his pockets, posture strong and unconcerned, and he can feel Erik’s eyes on his back all the way into the ballroom, burning like hot coals.

Softly, softly. Let Erik come to him.

It’s the best accident Charles has ever had.

 

~*~

 

The dinner is exquisitely prepared, and the string quartet is excellent – the cellist is a projecting empath, and one of the violinists is an illusionist, so between them they create an extrasensory performance that is quite unique. They’d be perfect for some of the pro-mutant events he’s involved with, and Charles makes a mental note to speak to them afterwards and get their business card so he can recommend them. Anyone who can keep even a little of his attention tonight is worth the money, and Erik seems to be enjoying the music too, if the way he’s steadfastly looking at the stage and never at Charles is any indication.

It’s nearly impossible not to reach out and touch Erik’s mind again, because as much as Charles is sure he’ll get used to it over time – will become comfortable there, if Erik lets him, familiar and affectionate – for now the mere memory of that mind brushing close alongside his own leaves Charles uncomfortably stiff in his pants, his cock half-hard and pressing against his fly in a way that would be embarrassing if it weren’t for the tablecloth hiding it. His conversation is suffering as a consequence, but he’s sat with a group who are more than happy to chat amongst themselves when they see Charles is distracted; he’s free to play at being David Attenborough all he wants, observing the wildlife from across the room and trying to understand its behaviour.

He knows Erik is aware of Charles watching him. It’s obvious in the way Erik sits, ramrod straight, shoulders back and chin slightly raised, defiant and proud - surely he doesn’t sit so stiffly when he’s at home and relaxed. He’s not nervous or disturbed by the others at his table, though. So. Erik is a man who’s not concerned about what others think of him so long as they think him self-sufficient, confident in himself and his abilities, and not shy or overtly submissive. Erik looks all of the Doms at the table in the eye without a moment’s pause, even Emma, and when he deigns to speak it’s measured, his expression polite but unengaged, disinterested. 

Then one of the others at the table says something – what, Charles can’t tell without intruding, but it’s like a sea-change comes over Erik’s face, his brows drawing together a little, eyes livening as he replies. Charles wants with sudden, unexpected fervour to know what they’re talking about, to put that look on Erik’s face himself and make him ignore the others.

It’s possible he’s getting a little too possessive. 

Erik is far from being his, and might not stay with Charles at all, even assuming Charles can keep Emma from annulling the contract before September. It’s incredibly frustrating – Charles admits it to himself ruefully, but he’s self-aware enough to recognise that he has never had to _wait_ for something before that he might not even get, to acknowledge that it really may be out of his reach. He is very, very patient. But it’s easy to be patient when you always get what you want.

He shifts in his seat, surreptitiously adjusting himself to prevent his zipper from digging in quite so painfully. Erik is so – he’s so tall, and the breadth of his shoulders makes him look as though he takes up more than his fair share of space at the table, everyone else shifting around to make room, his big hands clasped on top of his napkin where he’s left it folded in front of him, neat and crisp even though Charles saw him use it at dinner. He’d look wonderful tied down, cuffs around those strong wrists and his arms lashed to the headboard above his head, strength contained and subject to Charles’ will – 

Charles swallows, and only keeps his breathing steady by sheer force, hands clenching into fists on his thighs. Just the thought of pressing Erik down into the bed and sitting on his cock is enough to make Charles have to lean back in his seat and close his eyes, willing his erection to subside before he makes a mess of himself in public. Or maybe Erik would prefer to be fucked, they can find out together what he likes, and even if it’s not a perfect fit with what Charles likes, wants Erik to do to him, they can do that, they can - 

When Charles forces himself to open his eyes Erik is looking right back at him from the other side of the ballroom, his mouth tight and unhappy - but what little of his emotions Charles can touch without alerting Emma are hot, wild and conflicted between desire and self-directed anger, and when Charles smiles at him Erik looks away sharply as though he’s been slapped, flushing, refusing even to acknowledge his intended Dominant and his expression tightening into outright defiance.

It takes an effort of will for Charles not to come right then and there. The swollen head of his cock shoots a little spurt of precome against the soft cotton of his briefs, his cock twitching and straining against his pants. Charles bites the inside of his lip hard enough to make it bleed, and his hips jerk hard enough that his chair squeaks against the parquet flooring as it stutters forward, moving him - thank God - further under the tablecloth so nobody can see the thick bulge between his legs or his fingers digging viciously into the muscle of his thigh, dimpling the fabric and threatening to bruise.

“Are you all right?” The middle-aged Dom next to him looks at him with concern, and Charles can only nod breathlessly, cheeks hot, and send a mental affirmative carefully stripped of arousal, because if he opened his mouth he’s not sure what sound would come out.

“I’m fine,” he manages after a moment, and he smiles as neutrally as he can before glancing back over at Erik, who is talking intently to Emma again, not looking at Charles at all. “I think I’ll get some fresh air before the speakers come out.”

After his exercise in mass suggestion earlier it’s not too difficult to inform any observers that he’s not sporting an erection when he pushes himself back from the table. He keeps his stride casual, not too fast, as he heads for the bathroom just outside the ballroom. It’s uncomfortable, but Charles keeps seeing that expression on Erik’s face, over and over, can’t help but imagine it pinned under him, Erik stubbornly refusing some order but turned on by it the way Charles is, not wanting to give in until he does, until he gives himself over - 

Charles has rarely been so glad to find a bathroom empty, and he heads immediately for the furthest stall, fingers already at his buckle even as he locks the door behind himself. As soon as it’s shut he leans back against it, bracing himself with his shoulders, and spreads his stance, feet apart. The judder of his zipper sends a shiver down his spine, metallic and rasping down the line of his cock where it’s trapped against his belly.

The release of pressure is delicious. Charles drags his cock out of his opened fly with unusual haste, and as soon as it’s out he closes his fist around it and starts jerking himself roughly, just a hard fast drag of his hand up and down, no finesse, just a desperate need to come. 

The light in the bathroom is stark, ungentle, and leaves everything perfectly clear – there’s no pretending this isn’t what it is, Charles having to run off to masturbate in near-public at the very thought of Erik. There’s no hiding the slap-slap sound of his hand between his legs, or the huff of his breath. He’ll have to be quick, before anyone comes in. 

Charles swallows down his groans at the fast, tight friction, thumbing the sensitive fret of his frenulum under the head, thinks about Erik’s broad back, the bare skin of Erik’s neck, collared, about tangling his fingers in Erik’s hair and pulling, or maybe coaxing him to sweetness, kissing him only when he’s good, outwaiting him until Erik has to submit - has to give Charles what Erik wants from him - 

It’s too good. He was already close, but the thought tips him over the edge and his hips jerk, hard, once, twice, into his hand, the stall door rattling on its hinges as he shudders through his orgasm. Charles stuffs his left wrist into his mouth to muffle his grunt as his right palm is filled with a hot wet splatter, only just resisting the urge to moan through the aftershocks. He feels hot all over, still stroking himself as pleasure tingles from his cock and trembling thighs and belly, running through his body along with a thick flood of endorphin-fuelled relief. 

It’s been a long time since he came that hard - as soon as he’d made up his mind to get bonded Charles stopped his usual casual nights here and there with other Doms, and he’d thought he was managing well with celibacy, until he’d got a good look at Erik.

He feels wrung out and wonderful, high on his orgasm and the illicit thrill of not getting caught. Sighing out the last of the shudders, Charles forces his sex-limp legs to straighten and reaches for the toilet paper to wipe off his hand as best he can, then flushes the evidence, checking his tux to make sure he didn’t get any come on him elsewhere - none he can see, good. And no witnesses to how incredibly, inappropriately filled with lust he is for his future submissive, who may or may not even want him, and whom he certainly shouldn’t have seen, let alone been jerking off thinking about in a public bathroom.

It’s a little embarrassing to be alone and tucking his slowly softening cock back into his pants, but he doesn’t really care right now. He’ll agonise over it later.

Once his fly is fastened and his clothes tidied Charles leaves the stall and crosses to the sinks to wash his hands thoroughly. He’s just soaping them up when the door behind him opens. Charles looks up at the mirror in front of him and catches a glance of his own face, flushed and self-satisfied in the gold-and-white room, and has a moment to wince - it’s blatantly obvious what he’s been doing - before he sees who it is in the doorway behind him and stops moving, the water rinsing the suds from his still hands.

Erik’s lips are slightly parted, his whole expression taken aback, caught by Charles’ gaze in the mirror. The confidence on his face wavers for a moment as he takes Charles in, clearly coming to some sort of conclusion - his gaze flickers over Charles’ body, his ass where he’s bent forward a little to reach for the soap, before snapping back to Charles’ face and then away, his chin rising as though someone has placed a finger beneath it and corrected his posture, perfect to the very degree.

Charles turns off the water. “Mr Lehnsherr,” he says, voice throaty, straightening, and for once instead of dampening down his Dominance he lets it show, waits for Erik to look back at him then runs his eyes slowly down Erik’s body before returning to his eyes, which he meets with a carefully neutral smile.

There’s a moment where he thinks Erik is going to leave, both of them paused, waiting, before all of a sudden Erik’s head drops - ever so slightly - and he says, “Mr Xavier,” in that same rich baritone, stepping inside and letting the door shut behind him. For all it’s a big bathroom, when Erik steps forward and heads for the stalls he passes so close to Charles that he can almost feel Erik’s warmth, though they never touch.

“I’ve solved the first three layers,” Charles says without turning, and Erik inhales sharply behind him right before Charles leaves the room without looking back.

He smiles to himself, even as he heads for the coat check, reaching out to call Raven and asking her to come pick him up early. Speeches or no, he needs to get out of here before he bumps into Erik again on purpose.


	7. Tell me, cuckoo, and sing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With thanks to Subtilior, as ever, for the beta, and to Spicedpiano for her skilled cheerleading ;)

April and May seem to pass by between one blink and the next, the weather slowly warming while Erik buries himself in his work. He’s always busy, and this Spring is no different. Outside the cold passes and leaves grow on the trees, flowers bloom, and inside Erik concentrates his mind on girders and cable bracers, on efficient design and graphing paper. He spends the sunny days at his desk, and sits for hours taking the architect’s sketches and changing them to prevent the inevitable collapse that would result as soon as the concrete was laid, like building blocks pushed together without any structural integrity to keep them there.

Concentrating on work doesn’t stop him thinking about Charles Xavier. By June it’s muggy inside and out, and he’s still lying awake at night, staring at the ceiling and fighting with himself over and over, too torn to sleep and too tired to let go. His blankets are rucked up and tangled around him when he wakes from all the tossing and turning, unable to settle and punching his pillow over and over in vain attempts to make it comfortable.

The problem is that Charles is attractive, and Erik is attracted. Desperately so. He’d never expected - he’d thought it would be easy not to care, but every little thing he’s learnt about Charles has been perfect, _perfect_ , from his height to the slightly rumpled air around him, the freckles dotting his cheekbones and the intense look in his eyes when he turned to face Erik in the bathroom and spoke, and Erik almost wants to bend for him, to see if - maybe - Charles would be good, would let Erik let go, could be trusted to look after things when Erik is floored and out of control. And yet - the thought of putting himself into somebody else’s power like that is - is - 

Erik can’t do it. Even the idea of it makes him recoil, rolling from one side onto the other and pressing his cheek against a cooler part of the pillow, jaw clenched and eyes tight shut.

He tries to accept that he’s going to go through with his plan and leave Charles without getting attached, but something inside him is holding him back, and he doesn’t know _why._ Erik feels like a pendulum, swinging in perpetual motion between independence and submission, and comes out of his bedroom in the mornings with dark circles under his eyes, thin-skinned and exhausted from dreams he barely remembers. In some of them he kneels. In some of them someone loves him. Sometimes they are one and the same.

It would be easier if he could just hate it, instead of leaning into the feeling and teasing himself with what he’s most afraid of. It would be easier if Charles wasn’t exactly what Erik wants.

Emma lets him have his head for the most part, which is perhaps most surprising of all – she and Moira must know there is something bothering him, but instead of forcing him to talk about it they leave him be, going about their days as normal around him while Erik stews. 

It’s surprising, then, when she comes to find him in his study, knocking on the open door with her knuckles before just walking in as though he’s already given her permission.

“Did you need something?” he asks, looking up from where he’s sat at his desk, his pen pausing mid-motion. The apartment is quiet, quieter once the nib has stopped scratching against the paper - Moira’s out on a bust for work so it’s just the two of them rattling around, informal and comfortable.

Emma shrugs, coming barefoot across the carpet to lean alongside him, setting her hip against the desktop as though she might hop up onto it at any moment. “That depends on whether you’re just working or busy writing ‘Mr Erik Lehnsherr-Xavier’ all over your notebook. Because if so I’ll leave you to it.”

Erik stiffens, but Emma just laughs, shaking her head and reaching out to touch his shoulder, a brush of fingers both brief and fond. “Oh, sugar. You get riled up so easily, it’s difficult to stop pulling your pigtails. Putting that aside, are you too busy to talk?”

They’ve not really discussed the ball, or Charles, since March, though Erik knows Emma has been meeting with Raven to make arrangements and agree terms. He’s interpreted it as Emma giving him space to think about it by himself, though it seems out of character for his sister, who usually nags him until he tells her what’s wrong and then forcibly fixes it for him. 

It’s not easy for Erik to admit that Emma has always been looking out for him, even when she drives him crazy, but the truth is that he would have been in foster care if it weren’t for her stepping in to take him when there was no pressure on her to do so, when nobody else even knew they were related.

“I can talk,” Erik says, and puts his pen down, turning his chair a little so he’s facing her, and doesn’t pull away when his knee touches the back of her leg.

There’s a moment where she pauses before picking the pen up herself, twirling it between her fingers like a baton. “I had a call from Mother today.” 

That sounds ominous. “And?”

“She wants to come and stay with us,” Emma says, genuine regret colouring her voice. “I tried to tell her to wait, since at least if she waits until October you two can avoid one another entirely, something I’m sure we’d all prefer - but she’s insistent. As much as I love you, sweetie, she’s my mother and as Head Domme of this family I’m responsible for her wellbeing when she asks me to be. So she’s coming here for a few days next week.”

The very thought of it is enough to make Erik tense up, and his jaw clenches so hard he can hear his teeth grinding against one another, visceral loathing flooding his chest. It’s clear Emma hears it from his mind - she winces ever so slightly, the corners of her eyes tightening even though the rest of her expression stays the same, calm and controlled. “When?” he asks, trying to sound normal.

“Tuesday.”

“Damn it, this is just what I need,” Erik snaps, shoving upward out of his chair with barely-restrained anger, his movements jerky and tight. He starts to pace around the little space he has between Emma and the far wall, her legs boxing him in behind the desk and keeping him in the room. “Of course she insisted, Hazel loves coming here and making my life miserable. She’s probably looking forward to it.”

“She’s a bitch,” Emma says honestly, and the next time he comes close enough she reaches for his arm and wraps her fingers around it, catching his elbow and squeezing just a little tighter when he tries to keep moving, making him stay without giving the verbal order. In her white loungewear, hair loose around her face and only minimal make-up, it could be any other day at home, except that Emma is looking at him with something like sympathy in her eyes, tugging him in to lean against the desk beside her so she can link their arms and keep a stronger tether on him. “It’s Father’s fault, Erik, and Mother has always been this way, even when I was a child. I love her, but I don’t expect you to. So tell her to fuck off like you usually do.”

Erik huffs and shoves his free hand stiffly through his hair. “I’d prefer not to give her the satisfaction. And if you invite her to the bonding ceremony I will never forgive you.”

Emma just tugs his head against her shoulder, curling her hand around the back of his head. “You’re bonding better than she did, and that takes some doing - the Xaviers are old, old money, much older than ours. She’s going to hate it. Mother wouldn’t come if you paid her.”

“Good,” Erik says, but there’s no doubt in his mind Hazel will have something to say about it anyway, about Charles.

 

~*~

 

When he can’t sleep he thinks most of all about his puzzle ball, cupped in Charles’ square, broad-fingered hands, and in the darkest watches of the night he wonders if Charles has broken into all his layers by now, gently unpeeling them one by one to find his secret heart.

 

~*~

 

Hazel Frost arrives on Tuesday evening in a fog of sweet perfume, the dazed-looking cab driver somehow strong-armed into carrying all her bags for her and staggering under the weight. She’s barely in the door before she’s practically genuflecting to Emma, eyes lowered, her bobbed bottle-blonde hair never even swaying as she dips, it’s so thick with hairspray.

No doubt Hazel was very beautiful when she was young, but all Erik sees now is a face as rigid as her hair, carved with deep lines where she has spent half her life forcing a smile and the other half sneering, and a penetrating gaze that seeks him out as soon as Hazel straightens, eyes as blue as her daughter’s but filled with malevolence. She doesn’t say it aloud, but Erik doesn’t have to be a telepath to hear her thinking _cuckoo child_ at him as loudly as she can. She’s said it often enough.

It’s not until after dinner - which Erik refuses to avoid, and give the old hag the satisfaction - that he’s left alone with her. Emma follows Moira into the kitchen to help her clean up and casts a subtle glance at Erik before she goes, along with a pulse of << _Put her in her place now and she’ll back off for the most part_ >> that makes Erik send back a mental roll of his eyes, because it’s never worked before.

“So,” Hazel says before he can so much as open his mouth, examining her nails with feigned disinterest in a way that is eerily reminiscent of Emma. “I hear you’re getting bonded to Charles Xavier? Surely not.”

It’s like he can never escape the man. Everything comes back around to Charles, as though he’s Erik’s sun and Erik a planet unwillingly caught in Charles’ gravity, orbiting ever closer and unable to pull away. Erik’s mouth tightens, and he sits a little straighter in his chair, lifting his chin. “I am.”

“Oh?” Hazel’s gaze is scalpel sharp when it flicks up to his face, and the corner of her mouth curls into a society smile. “Oh, that is too rich, even for Emma. Charles Xavier!”

Erik bristles. “What’s wrong with Charles Xavier?”

“Nothing, nothing! He’s very respectable, a lovely boy really. There’s nothing wrong with him,” she says, delicately avoiding putting an emphasis on the last word, and if anything her smile grows deeper, her cheek dimpling in on some private joke. “Quite aside from the idea of bonding him to you, Emma’s little junkyard dog, of course. I thought for certain Emma would pick out some mouse of a Dom who wouldn't know how to handle you in the hopes you'd stay where your bread was buttered, if she was going to pick anyone for you at all, not someone like Charles Xavier. You know, I’ve known him since he was small? His mother and father, too, and his stepfather. He'll have you eating out of a bowl on the floor before you can say 'walkies', and liking it no doubt. Assuming he doesn’t send you to the pound.” 

It’s not as though he wasn’t expecting unpleasantness from her, but her words burn like salt in a fresh wound, and Erik finds himself speechless, incapable of answering her for the first time since he was a child, and even then he had said _something_. It’s like she’s taken her thumb and shoved it right into him where he’s tender and bleeding, and given it a twist, right in his greatest insecurity, and all Erik can do is stare at her with bile rising in his throat, unable to open his mouth for fear of throwing up.

She knows it, too, just smiles, and smiles, hyena-like and victorious as she says, sweetly, “I'll look forward to hearing you bark, Erik.”

“Charles isn’t like that.” Erik hadn’t even noticed Emma and Moira have come to the kitchen doorway until Emma speaks. She’s frowning, now, openly unhappy with her mother in a way she rarely shows. “If I hear you talking about him or Erik like that again I’ll have to pack you off to a hotel. I won’t have it in my household.”

Hazel moulds her face into an expression of deep hurt, as though she’s somehow the victim, and Erik snaps. So much for keeping his cool. He always means to, but the old witch has always known which buttons to press to make Erik absolutely fucking _lose it_.

“Just because Winston never loved you enough to keep his dick out of other subs,” he says as soon as he can force down the urge to spit in her face, heart pounding and hands fisted in his lap, “does not mean that you get to speak about me, or by extension my mother, as though we’re any less than you. The only difference between Emma and I is that she was born on the right side of the leash.”

“Emma and me, dear, it's a common fallacy,” Hazel corrects him without even reacting to the insult. Her face is a perfect society mask above her heavy pearl collar, cold and unconcerned. “At least use the correct grammar if you’re intending to pass yourself off as something more than sidewalk trash, sugar. Dear Charles is a Professor for his work, he won’t be wanting to grade your essays when he gets home, too. At least if he feeds you by hand you won’t have to worry about embarrassing him by using the wrong fork.”

Erik lurches to his feet, and when his knees shove against it his chair scrapes backwards across the floor with an almighty screech like a scream.

“That’s _enough_ ,” Emma snaps, and she comes swiftly over to the end of the dining table, whereupon Hazel delicately bows her head in submission before she can be called on her bullshit, a small smile still on her face. Emma scowls. “No, Mother. You don’t get to come here and insult Erik like that right in front of me and then just slither out of it by pretending to be cowed. He is my brother, whatever you think of it, and you will apologise or I will send for a cab and pack you off to The Dorchester.”

Erik forces his fist to open and waves her off, forces the motion smooth, or as smooth as it can be. “It’s fine, Emma.” He still feels sick, but he refuses to let it show on his face, because it’s very definitely _not_ fine. The implication - that Charles will manipulate Erik into submitting for him, that Erik won’t be able to resist - is settling in deeper, and it’s true, isn’t it, that Charles used his telepathy to blithely blank them from the attention of an entire room full of psionics in March, without looking so much as strained or seeming concerned about the ethics of it; he had been _in Erik’s head_ even through Emma’s shielding throughout that entire conversation, and if it had felt good when he was there, and Erik had missed it when he withdrew as they went in to dinner, then maybe that was part of the honey-trap, part of the game for him. Maybe Charles is just luring him in with sweetness instead of vinegar, and Erik only keeps himself from trembling with nervous energy by sheer force of will, raising his chin and looking down his nose at Hazel. “Since I don’t care what she thinks, she can say whatever she likes. Her opinion is worth less than nothing.”

“So long as the Xaviers don’t write back and complain that you sent them substandard goods, darling,” Hazel says, and that’s it. Erik turns on his heel and storms out of the room with shoulders taut and braced for a knife in the back, has to leave before he does something he won’t regret.

“Congratulations, Mother, on ruining months of my hard work,” he overhears Emma say as he’s leaving, and Erik doesn’t break anything, but only through sheer force of will.

 

~*~

 

“It’s got a lot of room, lovely high ceilings, and a perfect balance of private and public footage between the bedrooms and the main living area,” the realtor says as she ushers Charles and Raven in out of the hall, shutting the front door behind them and coming to join him in the main room of the apartment, clipboard in hand as their footsteps echo in the empty space. “Though of course the real selling point is the view.”

“I can see that,” Charles says, already walking forward towards the open balcony doors and out onto the little terrace. The grey slate tiling is lovely, but it’s Central Park Charles is looking at, nearly breathless at the sheer expanse of it laid out in front of and below the apartment. There are trees and green spaces everywhere, beautiful in the June sunshine with the sparkle of water far off and the sound of traffic muted by the distance to the ground. “It’s wonderful.”

Raven whistles when she reaches his side, long and low. “Wow, Charles.”

The realtor looks pleased at their reactions, checking her clipboard instead of joining them at the balcony’s edge - she probably sees it every day, though Charles can’t really imagine getting bored of this view. Her voice is warm, though, professionally encouraging and backed up in her mind with a genuine liking for the property that’s reassuringly devoid of caveats. “The previous owners moved out a month ago, so the place is totally empty and available immediately. Would you like to see the rest of it?”

Charles twists to look at the realtor over his shoulder, smiling brightly. “Yes, please.”

She smiles back, blushing just a little. “I’ll stay out here, you two have a wander and see what you think.”

Inside the air is cooler, out of the afternoon sun - the balcony seems to catch the most of it at this time of day, but Charles imagines it streaming in in the mornings, making everything warm and dappled through long Venetian blinds, streaking Erik’s skin and the bed in long spots and stripes, leaving him leopard-spotted with sunheat when Charles strokes a hand down his side. The main room is large, but he can imagine the morning light might hit at the right angle to reach long fingers into the open-plan kitchen at the far side when they have breakfast, and it’s impossible not to think of Erik at the table barely dressed, maybe in just his shorts, reading the newspaper while Charles kisses the side of his neck and puts his hand -

“Let’s go look at the master suite,” Raven says, interrupting his train of thought, and Charles smiles ruefully to himself as she drags him off to see it, because he’s putting the cart before the horse, again – he’s assuming Erik will want what he wants and forgetting that he has to get Erik to want him, first.

It’s hard to admit that he wants someone more, he suspects, than they want him. It’s not a lost cause, by any means, but Charles can’t help thinking about ways to win Erik over, what it might be like when – if – he succeeds.

The master bedroom is another big room, with tall windows opening onto the terrace, and though it’s devoid of character at the moment it’s altogether too blank a canvas for his overactive imagination, already focused on the only subject he’s interested in, lately. His mind’s eye fills it with an enormous iron-framed bed, a chest at the bottom of it maybe, for keeping toys in. Maybe a chair in the corner, if Erik likes being watched…

Then Charles’ hand falls against his trouser pocket, and the round shape of the puzzle ball curves against his fingers through the fabric.

It’s down to about the size of an apricot now, the top four layers laid out like discarded petals on the shelf by his bed at home, each more intricate than the last. He only solved the fourth one last week, had been left turning it over and over in his hands for two months examining the fine detail in the copper brambles, long thorny branches interwoven with one another around spine-edged leaves and the five rounded, sleek blackberries, hidden in the design. It had taken Charles a long time to realise that there was a hidden catch under one of the leaves, a tiny hinge you couldn’t flick open without catching yourself on the thorns.

What it tells him is this: Erik is a private person. The reminder makes him reconsider the image he had in his mind of the room, putting it into the context of someone who would prefer to feel cocooned away from the world when he submits, to feel safe and unobserved. Thick curtains, long and plush, to shut out everyone else; dark furniture and warm, deep colours, maybe, to make it feel closer, intimate in a way the neutral magnolia the walls are painted now can never be. Maybe a little purposeful clutter, to make it less formal. A room where only Charles can see him, where only they matter.

It’s strange how this little ball of metal makes him think of Erik in different ways, the enforced distance leaving him to interpret things not from Erik’s mind but from what he has shown Charles of who he is. Charles had always thought of the betrothal present as more of a formality, before. And… he has to wonder what Erik thought of the book Charles gave him, what he thinks of Charles.

They go back out into the main room and across to the other side of the apartment, wandering down a short hallway which leads to a bathroom and three guest bedrooms, one of which has been wired up for use as a study. Maybe they could convert one of the others into a second office, if Erik wants his own working space - it would probably be a good idea, actually, to give him somewhere to retreat to, where Charles doesn’t go. “Can you imagine living here?” he asks Raven, who spins on her heel, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“I think it’s amazing,” she says, looking through the open bathroom door and letting out a low whistle that reverberates from the tiles. “I’m jealous. Why didn’t we move here when I _wasn’t_ moving out from under your iron fist?”

Charles smiles, though the reminder is rather poignant. “You know that if you wanted to live with us, it wouldn’t be a problem, right?” he says, and gestures around him at the apartment, across the hall at the guest bedrooms and the one she had immediately claimed as hers for future visits. “There’s plenty of space for you.”

Raven tucks her hand into the crook of his elbow and drags him to the window where they can see another slice of the park, gazing out over it together. “So you like this one?” she asks instead of answering, but her mind is saying, _I’ll be alright, don’t worry, I want this for you and for me,_ and so Charles just kisses her cheek and says, “I do. Come on, let’s go put in an offer.”

“And then we can go and look at furniture! You know how much you love shopping, Charles, don’t lie,” Raven says, and Charles would like to protest but they both know that it’s true.

He thinks about Erik in this apartment with him as he talks to the realtor, about what it might be like to bring him here for the first time - no, to find him here for the first time, on their bonding night, Erik will be here first, in their bedroom, waiting for Charles. And then - 

Well. That will rather depend on Erik. But Charles has high hopes for this apartment, he really does. He just hopes Erik loves the view, too.


	8. Give me the decision and I'll handle the fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly - I'm incredibly sorry and feel rather guilty actually not to have replied to everyone's extremely kind comments on the last two chapters of this fic. It's my usual MO to reply to everyone, since you've taken the time to comment, but because of wrist issues I was trying to limit my typing and they got missed. I'm doing better now but it feels like it's too late to respond, so just: thank you very much, and they're very much appreciated!
> 
> Secondly, with thanks as ever to Subtilior and Spicedpiano, without whose incisive betaing this fic would not be half as good.

It’s fairly standard for Emma to come home one day and just declare that they’re taking a summer vacation, and in the sweltering inner-city July Erik is, if he’s honest, relieved when she comes home one evening looking a little melted around the edges. He’s been waiting for it for days, and she finally looks about ready to cave in.

She comes to collapse opposite Erik on the other couch with a sigh and kicks her shoes off. “I swear to God, someone needs to turn down the thermostat in this city,” Emma says, tipping her head back and relaxing into the cushions. Though outside of the apartment Emma projects an image of herself as being as intimidatingly crisp and fresh as ever, as soon as the door closes behind her she lets the illusion go, and at home alone with Erik he can see where her dress is clinging to her body, soaked through with sweat, and her hair damp at the temples despite her fanning herself with the wide brim of her hat.

“You can go report it to Jerry if you want. The air conditioning for the whole building is broken - one of the few rubber parts needs replacing, naturally, or I’d have fixed it myself.” Erik’s been sat in his shorts, bare-chested and nursing a cold beer for about half an hour, trying to work up the energy to work or go to the gym or to do anything but vegetate, but it’s just too humid to move.

The air in there is like syrup, and the two of them loll there bonelessly for a while, only their shallow breathing and the motion of Emma’s hat indicating that they’re still alive.

“So where are we going?” he asks eventually, and lifts his hand to roll the bottle across his forehead, the chill of the beer inside blissful for the few seconds it lasts.

Emma raises her head from where she’s let it sag back against the cushion, and he feels the distinct sensation of her plucking the thought from his mind, like taking its shadow and leaving the thought itself behind. “On vacation?” she asks sluggishly, sounding surprised. “Sugar, we aren’t going anywhere. You’re getting bonded this year.”

Erik frowns. “Your point being…?”

“I have too much to do planning the ceremony and making sure it all goes well for us to go on vacation,” Emma says, plucking at her skirt where it lays across her knees and hiking it immodestly up to the tops of her thighs, only just covering parts of her Erik has no wish to see. “As much as I would love to whisk Moira away for a week or two in San Tropez - I would begrudgingly bring you, too, I suppose, though you look less fetching in a bikini - I have to stay in New York. Raven’s too inexperienced to be organising a bonding by herself, and though she has exquisite taste someone needs to bully the caterer into serving something palatable.”

Disappointment bites down hard, the heat only seeming to get worse with his frustration, and Erik decides - that’s it. He’s had enough.

His skin makes a sticky, peeling noise, loud and vulgar, as it pulls away from the leather of the couch, the line of his spine sweaty enough that it feels cool for a moment once it’s in the open air. “Why does everything always have to be about Charles,” he snaps, getting to his feet with hands clenched into fists at his sides. “It’s fucking July, I have two months left before it’s all about Charles and he’s already dictating to me what I can and can’t do!”

The hat stops abruptly. “I think you’ll find _I_ am dictating to you what you can and cannot do,” Emma says, her voice utterly neutral and utterly freezing, all lethargy gone. “ _Sit down,_ Erik.”

His knees give way as though his hamstrings have been cut, and the couch cushion fairly bounces under his ass as Erik falls back into it, the force of her will enough to overrule his muscles with no input from his brain. Erik growls, and goes to get up again - but Emma’s lip curls and she flicks a finger at him, without using her power this time. The expression on her face is enough that Erik stays put anyway, shocked into compliance.

“Look, sugar,” she says, without so much as leaning forward. The hat starts into motion again, the faint breeze it creates fanning her hair as Emma sits with utmost poise, perfectly at ease with her Dominance over him despite her dishevelled appearance. “Honey. I’ve been very patient with you since you came into my care, because I understand where you’re coming from. Better than most. And I thought you were going to get over this, considering the way you’ve been mooning over Charles, so I held my tongue. But - thanks to Mother - it seems I need to say this out loud to you, and I want you to think it through and actually consider what I’m going to say instead of brushing it off like you do everything you don’t want to hear.”

Erik scowls, folding his arms across his chest and dipping his chin, hiding his throat. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

It earns him a tight smile. “I haven’t said it yet, and I’m the telepath here.” Emma flicks her finger at him again, this time with a warning sting across his nerves, and he shuts up. “Good. Now, here it is: not all Dominants are bastards, and not all Dom/sub relationships are bad. Daddy was. His relationship with your Mama was. But it is insulting that you’ve kept on taking the six months of his frankly abusive relationship with her as the standard instead of the exception all this time, when you’ve been living under my Dominance, with Moira’s and my bond as an example, and seen how we are together. I’ve tried and tried to be a good role model for you, to show you what good Dominance is, and all you do is act like it means nothing to you. Sometimes I want to throttle you for all the things you think.”

Erik feels himself bristle. “My thoughts are private! You have no right - ”

“ _Erik_. I’m a telepath! You know I hear what you’re thinking, it’s part of living with me and you agreed to it when you moved in, signed it off with Social Services, even.”

“I was eleven!”

“And you’ve never rescinded your agreement, though you have that right,” Emma says, and finally that calm mask of hers cracks enough to show frustration underneath, a little wrinkle appearing between her brows as she frowns. “ _Listen_ to the part of what I’m saying to you that is, in fact, my point. You think any Dominant is going to abuse your trust and be unworthy of your submission. Your whole thought process is based on what happened to your mother, but you completely ignore all the proof around you that this is _not true_. You’re acting like a blinkered horse, Erik, too dumb to turn your head and see anything but what you’ve decided to stare at.”

Erik gets to his feet, slowly, ignoring Emma’s pointed look and leaning forward a little over the table, looming over her with his heart pounding like a jackhammer in his chest. He can’t decide if he’s angry or mortified, and his voice comes out through a tight throat, gravelled and rough. “Fuck you, Emma. You have no right - ”

“Daddy was a nasty, promiscuous, lying cheating asshole,” Emma interrupts, not even getting up, tilting her head back to look at Erik and still making it look as though she has the upper hand. “He was not a nice person. But that was who _he_ was, not because he was a Dom, and you never even met him – you’ve built him up in your head into a paragon of evil, the spectre of him stronger than the reality ever could have been. Charles isn’t like that, but you’ve already decided to tar him - and me, and half the damn population, let alone all the subs you look down on for getting bonded - with the same brush.”

The metal fastenings of the furniture are starting to rattle, a low hum of sound like a train in the distance. “That’s not true!”

Emma arches an eyebrow, flicking her hair back over her shoulder with her free hand. “Oh? Then what possible reason do you have to have decided already that Charles is going to manipulate you into being some subservient puppet?”

The coffee table jumps into the air between them and slams down with a loud crash of wood on wood as the legs hit the floorboards, the pins holding it together straining at the seams to get loose, and Erik shouts, fists jerkin at his sides, “Everything!”

Emma nods as though this has answered her question entirely, and he feels her presence again when it’s too late to do anything about it, a shadow in his head. “Nothing,” she says. “That’s what I thought.”

“That’s not what I thought!”

“Erik, give me one thing Charles has done to make you distrust him already when you’ve barely exchanged two words with him,” she says, and waits as Erik - opens his mouth. Closes it again on silence.

“And, pre-emptively - yes, Charles is a telepath, like I am. I was his first tutor,” Emma says quietly, not even needing to speak at normal volume to be heard. “He would never change you, whether he liked what he found or not. Charles is a good man, and I have always thought he would be the best person I could ever give my little brother. Not just that, but you would be good for him, too. He needs someone to care for that he can keep – Raven won’t stay forever. And I want you to be cared for, Erik – not as a pet, but as yourself.”

There’s a longer silence this time between them, only the sounds of traffic outside and other people far away, the sounds of the building and of Erik’s breathing, filling his ears along with the thud of his heartbeat, drumlike and incessant, drowning out everything else. He feels flayed, as though Emma has torn him open and yanked out something inside of him that he’d built himself around, cracked it open to show him the insides and let him judge for himself their value. He stands with his hands slowly loosening from their fists, barefoot and at bay, while Emma looks back, her expression giving away nothing.

“Just think about it,” she says in the end, when he doesn’t reply, standing and adjusting her skirt so it falls properly around her knees, once again flowing the way it should. “I won’t make you go through with anything you don’t want to, but I want you to be sure you don’t want to first, Erik. Make an informed decision, not a snap one.”

Erik spends a long time that evening out on the balcony, until long after the late night sunset fades. He hears Moira come home, and quiet voices in the apartment behind him, but neither woman interrupts him.

 

~*~

 

It’s a packed lecture hall today, and Charles can’t help but be flattered - it’s one of those high August days where the sun has burned off the city smog and shines down bright and hot on New York, birds singing in the parks, people on the streets in shorts and tank tops. He would expect the students to be playing hooky from summer school to go and enjoy the weather. But instead, astoundingly, wonderfully, here they are, waiting to listen to him talk about the mutant rights struggles of the 1960s and their impact on equality legislation in the 21st century.

Not all of them are mutants, either –there are plenty of human students in here, too. The atmosphere is generally positive, though there are as ever a few who’ve come to pretend at playing devil’s advocate and use the phrase like a shield. There always are, even in Azazel’s guest lecture on visible mutation and prejudice. Charles is used enough to these not to worry, or care. If they get too extreme and the other students don’t put them down, then he is more than capable of doing so himself.

He’s preoccupied enough with setting up the powerpoint presentation for the projector and handing the attendance sheet to the closest student, then starting the lecture, that he gets about a third of the way through the class before he sweeps his gaze along the back row and catches sight of a familiar face. A pair of intense eyes fixed on Charles, long-fingered hands not taking notes like the rest but folded instead on the narrow desk in front of a strong, broad chest, a body whose posture is both attentive and tense.

Charles’ breath jerks in his chest like there’s a hook caught behind his breastbone, tugging, and he has to pretend to cough to cover his choke of surprise. Because Erik is sat in the back of Charles’ lecture, looking back at him, on his own where he shouldn’t be, isn’t allowed to be. His hair is sleeked back, and he’s wearing a t-shirt and jeans – it’s incredibly informal compared to the tuxedo Charles saw him in before, yet somehow Erik still looks untouchably elegant, separate from the students all around him, like there’s a spotlight on him, lighting him from inside for Charles’ attention. He looks - god, just seeing him is like being run through with an electric current, tingling up and down Charles’ spine and making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

Swallowing the cough, Charles gives the next line of the lecture easily, without even a hesitation, but he feels as though his mouth belongs to someone else, someone who’s not staring at Erik in the back of the room and fighting the urge to reach out and touch a mind he’s been forbidden from, his whole self burning with curiosity - why is Erik here?

“Any questions so far?” Charles asks when he comes to the next break point. He picks a student almost at random, and forces himself to tear his gaze away from Erik and back to what he’s supposed to be doing - his _job._

He can’t help but feel those eyes on him throughout the lecture, though, even as he walks the stage, crossing from one side to the other and fielding debates, making his own points and asking questions, his shirtsleeves rolled up around his elbows and gesturing with his hands. The back of his neck prickles with the sensation of Erik’s attention, like a single high, pure note ringing through the background noise of his class. It’s the perfect sound to capture Charles’ thoughts and draw them in, something strong-willed that emanates from Erik like a question - and it is a question. Erik is asking something, looking for answers, here to find out - something. Not asking Charles, but something about Charles.

Either way, it’s not something he can use for debate in the lecture, so Charles steels himself against temptation and does his job, only letting himself look at Erik from time to time, when it won’t be obvious to every student in here that he’s distracted, that there is something to look at. He doesn’t want them looking at Erik.

What is he doing here? Erik has to know it could cause him - both of them - a lot of trouble if they were caught, and not just from Emma. The university review board wouldn’t look kindly on Charles’ future submissive being here, in his lecture, before they’re bonded. If Erik wanted to sabotage his own reputation he could have done it without having to go through the whole bonding process with Charles, and if he’s just here to see him - if he just wanted to come and see Charles -

Well. The very idea of it makes Charles hot, his cock hardening a little in his pants, but if that is the case then Erik is even less disciplined than Charles has been led to believe, and will need to be punished appropriately.

“So as you can see,” he says, once the students have wound down from their debate, “much like any law, the legislation about mutant rights has to be flexible to the situation - especially with mutant powers varying so wildly between individuals. It’s simply not possible to legislate for every eventuality. If you crush a portion of the population too tightly under the law - just as in the history we’ve been talking about today, just as occurred around the world when mutant powers first emerged - they will rebel against it and render the effort meaningless. Most people want to be lawful and ‘good’, provided that law is fair and even-handed. There’s a long way to go yet in terms of fine-tuning mutant legislation, but we’re much further along a path of equality than we were in the 1960s. Now, that’s all for today - I want you to read the next two chapters of your textbook before the next class, and answer and turn in the essay questions at the end of each chapter. If anyone has any issues or queries you can come find me in my office during my standard hours.”

The students get to their feet in a sudden hubbub of noise, chattering and laughing as they gather up their things. Charles smiles absently and turns off the projector, waiting as unobtrusively as he can to see what Erik will do.

He can feel him, still, sat at the top of the auditorium while everyone else ebbs and flows around him, his eyes on Charles at the bottom, putting away his laptop. Charles waits, until all the students have gone and it’s only the two of them, before he lifts his eyes again and meets Erik’s.

In the quiet the lecture hall feels simultaneously public and intimate, Charles looking up at Erik, stood in a shaft of sunlight while the man he hopes will be his bondmate sits in the shadows, looking back at him.

“Did you want something?” Charles asks eventually, and reaches out to touch very gently against the outside of Erik’s thoughts, not intruding but instead making his presence known. “This is against the rules, Erik, you know that.”

Erik’s face is inscrutable, calm and neutral, though there’s a thrumming of his mind that is anything but calm, a siren song of attraction and confusion and indecision that Charles can’t help but catch and want to soothe. He steps forward from the pit of the auditorium and out of the sun, up onto the first stair, shoes clacking on the linoleum.

All he can hear is the silence when he stops moving – mostly because Erik’s silent, too. “Answer me when I speak to you, please,” Charles says, and puts his hands in the pockets of his pants, then waits, patiently, for Erik to react.

A moment passes. Two.

The room is big, and by rights it should be hard to hear him, but when Erik speaks the acoustics carry his voice perfectly - low, controlled, and still as lovely as the first time Charles heard it. “I’m not yours yet,” he says, and stands slowly from his seat, chin lifting high and proud – defiant, but Charles can feel his mind _wanting_.

“Yet.” Charles steps up again onto the next stair. “Why did you come today? It’s a pleasure to see you, but you have to know it’s risky, us even talking.”

Erik shifts uneasily, and Charles stops climbing, waits where he is for Erik to calm. “What layer are you down to now?” Erik asks.

Charles smiles. “The fifth. Your puzzle ball is a truly beautiful object, Erik. I assume you made it?”

It earns him a sound of surprise, almost too quiet to hear, but then it’s as though a scale tips – the question seems to have hit Erik’s limit, and he turns to leave, walking quickly along the row of seats to the aisle furthest from Charles before turning upward. His long legs take the stairs easily, and he’s at the door in seconds, pressing at the release handle.

Charles can’t help but take one step closer, two, before Erik can leave, reaching out desperately with one hand and his mind to touch Erik’s thoughts. There’s a blissful moment of contact, heated, familiar – but then the connection breaks like it’s been cut by a knife, Erik’s hands curling into fists as he snaps up thick mental shields and knocks Charles abruptly out of his head. It wouldn’t be enough to prevent Charles from looking if he were determined, but it’s enough to make him frown in frustration, and it must transmit because Erik turns at the double doors at the top of the staircase, pressed back against them like a beast at bay, staring down at him like Charles frightens him, though that fright seems to make him more aggressive than submissive.

“I don’t understand what you want,” Erik says, forceful and almost spitting the words out, hands clenched in fists at his sides. “I don’t understand you.”

Charles doesn’t move, stays where he is looking up at Erik with that a frown on his face, putting his hands back in his pockets and thinking, _If I can just say the right thing now._

“I want you to be happy,” he says, and lets himself shrug, the frown becoming a rueful smile. “I want to make you happy. That would make me happy.”

“You want to Dominate me.” Erik’s thoughts are blunt, uncompromising, determined to say it out loud even though it scares him.

“Yes,” Charles says, simply, and lets his mind caress Erik’s, a long, slow stroke of neurons that makes Erik shudder at the top of the stairs despite the summer heat. “The two aren’t mutually exclusive. I want to have you every way you will let me. I want you to come to me willingly, or not at all, and I want you to fuck me, and I want you to be mine. I don’t want you to change. I want every atom of you just the way you are, and I want you to want every atom of me, and I want you to kneel at my feet and submit to me of your own free will.”

There’s a long silence between them, then, stood staring at one another, before Erik leaves, pushing the doors open behind himself and vanishing into the corridor beyond.

Charles doesn’t try to stop him. He doesn’t need to. Either way, he’ll see Erik in a month, and then he’ll know.

 

~*~

 

He picks out a collar for Erik by himself, despite Raven’s offering to help, using the measurements Emma sent to them along with the signed contract. The jeweller places it very carefully in a velvet-lined box along with the matching bonding bracelet, and Charles pays for it while trying not to imagine how it will look on Erik, if only Erik can bend far enough to let Charles put it on.


	9. The Heart of the Matter, Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With thanks to Subtilior for, as usual, a swift and thorough(ly ass-kicking) beta, and to Spicedpiano for pretty much bullying me into getting this chapter done!
> 
> I know I've been less present than usual writingwise; I'm still having wrist-issues alongside RL stuff, so I'm working slower than normal for me. But I hope you like this chapter!

Charles counts down the days after the last time he sees Erik, marking them off in his mind as each one passes and no word comes to cancel the bonding, no change of heart from Erik, taking back his agreement and never wanting to see Charles again.

Thirty-two. Twenty-seven. Twenty-three.

Eighteen. Eleven days left. Still waiting, to see if Erik will back out.

Nine, and they’re down to single digits.

Six days. Five days. Four.

Three - surely he would have heard by now, if Erik were going to call things off. Two days.

One.

 

~*~

 

He can’t be fond of it, but the room Charles wakes to on the last morning in the old apartment he’s been sharing with Raven is familiar at least, full of the same old furniture and books he’s decided to leave there for the time being until Erik has a chance to stake out his own territory in the new place. It’s comfortable, lying curled on his side with a pillow tucked in against his chest and the duvet kicked down to his waist, his old undershirt bunched up around his belly and the sounds of outside only tiptoeing in through the open window. Raven’s mind is still asleep in her room on the other side of the wall, and Charles’ bonding suit is hanging from the wardrobe door across the room, dark grey jacket, waistcoat and pants and a crisp white shirt, the blue tie slung loosely, unknotted, around the hanger, silk catching the sheen of the sunlight where it’s crept in between the curtains.

Today is the day he gets bonded.

Charles lies and just looks at his suit for a little while, nervousness singing through him as he thinks about putting it on, not quite ready to move yet and have the day really begin, when he will have to make room for anything else except anticipation. There’s a steady heat building in his belly, sharp and wanting, at the thought of getting bonded to Erik. Today, Erik becomes his, and he becomes Erik’s. And tonight…

Tonight, Charles is going to respect Erik’s boundaries, and be good to him, so good that Erik will bend of his own free will, will let Charles show him what that electricity between them is for, what it means that there are sparks when their eyes meet. He’ll show Erik what they can have, if Erik lets them.

Charles’ cock stiffens between his legs, the normal morning swell hardening at the thought of Erik on his back, Charles on top of him sliding down onto Erik’s erection, having teased him already with fingers and lips. Maybe Erik will let Charles hold him down, will moan and spread his legs for it, instead of hiding; will try and reach for him, only to reluctantly comply when Charles tells him to stay still, riding him into the mattress. The idea of it is enough to make Charles groan and roll onto his belly, shoving the pillow further down and rolling his hips forward to rub his hard cock against the worn cotton. God, if only Erik will let him, he’ll make it so _good_. Charles’ hips stutter forward once more, twice, before he makes himself stop, already breathing hard. It’s difficult, but there’s no point in undermining the anticipation - he’ll wait, he can wait. Keep it for later, for Erik. He lies there for a while breathing in his own scent on the sheets, a light sheen of sweat prickling his skin, muscles lax while he waits for his arousal to subside, tumescent cock lying swollen against his thigh and slowly, reluctantly, going down. 

When Charles finally twists onto his back and sits up he feels a little sticky, grimy - he tugs off the sweat-dampened undershirt, and the cool air prickles goosebumps along his newly exposed skin, but he ignores it, rolling his shoulders to loosen up, before swinging his feet out and down to rest on the carpet, scrubbing at his eyes with the back of one hand and scratching at his stubble. Alright. Time to face the day.

By the time Raven comes into the kitchen Charles is showered, shaved and dressed in loose pants and a button-down shirt - not the one he’s wearing for the bonding - with the remains of his breakfast out on the table in front of him as he makes a noble attempt at reading the newspaper. “Morning,” he says, turning the page with a loud rustle of paper. It’s more a show of calm than anything else - the words make sense while he’s reading them, but as soon as he moves onto the next sentence he’s already forgotten what he just read. He feels like a plucked string, vibrating a low, singular note and waiting for a conductor.

Raven’s eyes flit over his loose clothes, his taut hands holding the paper, the set of his body, and then flick back to Charles’ face. It’s clear she’s not fooled. “Good morning,” she says, the corner of her mouth twitching into a fond smile. “You’re up early, seeing as we’re not due at the courtinghouse until this afternoon. I’d have thought you’d try to get some sleep this morning to compensate for this evening.”

Charles snorts, shaking his head. “As if I could sleep in today.” He lets himself relax a little, sitting back in his chair and letting her see a little of his jittery energy, his distraction and restlessness. “I have no idea what I’m going to do with myself until it’s time to get dressed and go. I can’t go anywhere or do anything away from home, because it feels inappropriate. But I can’t just sit here and do nothing, either, or I’ll go mad waiting. I _wish_ I could sleep in!”

“Poor dear,” Raven says, not unkindly, though she’s grinning like a Cheshire cat as she crosses the kitchen and hops easily up onto the counter, parking herself between the stove and the sink. “I won’t lie, you fretting like this makes me feel like I did a good job.”

“I’m not fretting,” Charles says immediately, a knee-jerk reaction that only earns him an amused shrug from Raven, who knows better. He concedes the point and smiles, somewhat ruefully, then reaches for his mug and takes a long sip of what turns out to be rather lukewarm tea. “Ugh. Left this too long. Anyway, I am trying to decide what to do with myself. Working is out of the question, I fully intend to take my week of honey and not to touch university-related things. I’ve even handed off my grad students with strict instructions not to contact me until I’m back in the office. So… well. I’m at a bit of a loose end.”

Raven, beautifully blue and iridescent, sticks out like a bird of paradise in the blandly beige kitchen of the old apartment, everything in it unobjectionable but utilitarian, no character to it at all and all but invisible in comparison to her bare feet swinging against the cabinets, peacock-coloured with toenails painted scarlet to match her hair. In many ways, in this room she reminds Charles of her impact on his life - a bright and wondrous creature come to disrupt his insipid, milk-and-water existence with her warm affection. It’s radiating from her now as she smiles at him, softer, no longer teasing, eyes crinkling at the corners and creasing the smallest of her scales. “Why don’t you let me paint you?” she asks, stretching out one leg to prod him in the shoulder with her toe. “That way you don’t have to do anything but sit quietly and contemplate your impending loss of bachelorhood while I immortalise your freakout in oils.”

“Don’t you have a bonding to organise?”

“I already did. Now my job is to keep you from getting drunk or running away,” Raven says blithely, jumping down from the counter and offering him her hand. “Come on. You know I have to do one of you for every show, it’s a tradition. With the last exhibition over they’re waiting for my next _tour de force_ , and you always sell first, you know.”

Charles reaches up and takes the offered hand, getting to his feet and letting Raven start to drag him off down the corridor. “What’s this one going to be about, then? I don’t see how my pre-bonding jitters fit into your usual themes.”

“Connections,” she says, swinging open the door to the room she uses as her studio. It’s covered in dropcloths and catches the morning sun beautifully - it’s bright outside, the blue sky beaming in on them and the white, untouched canvases still stacked against the cream-coloured walls as Raven drags him inside and shuts the door behind them. “This painting is going to be about you, the most interconnected and well-liked person I know, still being worried that this one guy _won’t_ like you. It’s going to be fine, Charles. Erik is going to love you.”

Charles refrains from mentioning the times they’ve met in person; Raven doesn’t know, and there’s no point making her worry now. “Where do you want me?” he asks instead, and is promptly positioned on his back on the low, worn-out velvet couch Raven keeps in here for models to sit on and for her to take naps, propped against the sloped end of it and the deep forest green fuzz of it soft against his bare forearms when she rolls up his sleeves.

“Just lie down and think about how I’m about to sign you away,” she says teasingly when she’s done rearranging his clothes, flicking open another button on his shirt and peeling it back on one side to show his collarbone. “However feels natural to you.”

The sleek hardwood of the frame is firm against the back of his head where he’s resting against it, reassuringly solid. After a while Charles forgets himself enough to move a little - he’s always stiff at first, holding pose as though moving even a millimetre will ruin everything - and eventually he can’t help but reach into his pants pocket and draw out the small object he’s grown to think of as his good luck charm, twisting it between his fingers and rubbing the flat of his thumb over it, over and over, feeling out its details with the familiarity of recent but all-absorbing habit.

“What’s that?” Raven asks when she next leans around the canvas, frowning at his hand, and Charles says, “It’s just something for later.”

When he gets dressed to leave for the courtinghouse he slips it into the pants pocket of his bonding suit, touching his fingers to it from the outside, through the fabric, and feels reassured.

 

~*~

 

The car ride there is too long, and by the time Charles arrives he’s struggling not to outwardly fidget, effervescent with anxious anticipation like he’s drunk too much soda, all of it bubbling up inside of him and clamouring to get out. Raven is sat beside him in a starkly beautiful white dress, not that he can see it. The antique silver blindfold is smooth and padded where it sits on his face, silk-lined and utterly cutting out the light, fitted tightly enough to his skin that there’s no chance of his seeing anything without borrowing someone else’s eyes.

He wonders how it feels to Erik, to have his own blindfold hiding the world from him, precious metal so close against his flesh - if Erik likes it, hates it, is even now feeling it out with his power, can feel Charles’, too, perhaps, hyper-aware of where Charles might be in the same way Charles is trying not to be of Erik. It’s harder not to search for him than it might have been if Charles had had the use of his eyes to distract him from his telepathy - the whole world reduced to sound and smell and touch and thought, all of New York aglow like a Christmas tree and Charles’ stubborn mind reflexively searching for one particular light.

Raven shifts and sighs beside him, tugging a little on his hand where her fingers are tangled with his in the middle of the seat, holding him firm. It’s a softer gesture than he would expect, given that she’s to act as his Dominant proxy and set to exude stern command, but it’s one he appreciates, both for its comfort to him but also knowing that she is worrying, at least a little, about his moving out and her becoming the Dominant of her little household of one, whether she’ll admit it or not. He squeezes her hand tighter, and feels the sunlight of her smile as she squeezes back.

“We’re nearly there, Master, Mistress,” the driver says over his shoulder as they turn a corner. The car sways them gently to one side, and Charles tenses up, can’t help it, even as Raven sits forward and says, “Looks like Emma is here with Erik already. They’re just going in now, we’ll have to wait a moment.”

It’s torturous, knowing Erik is so close and being unable even to reach out to him in his mind, and denied the use of his eyes to see him the regular way. Charles turns his head towards where he imagines Erik to be - he has no way of knowing with the blindfold and Emma no doubt watching for indiscretions, but it feels right, and being patient has never been so hard as this, as knowing he is within so short a time of having Erik for his own, and within hours of finding out, once they’re alone, if Erik has any intention of being kept. 

The darkness is gentle, and cruel. He listens to the sounds of far-off car doors opening and closing, voices, the thrum of their engine as the driver finally eases them forward and pulls over to a stop, the ratcheting noise as he puts on the handbrake.

“Good luck, sir,” the man says, and Charles nods thanks in his general direction, shaping his mouth into an unruffled smile to hide his impatience. There’s the sound of the car door opening, and the man gets out, shutting it behind himself.

“Give me your arm,” Raven says, shifting across towards Charles’ side of the car, and she curls her hand into the crook of his elbow, pressing with her shoulder for him to move towards the rear door, which opens from the outside, the driver knowing better than to try and help. Charles refuses to seem as though he needs help today of all days, and so he places his feet outside on the sidewalk with steady care to make sure they are solidly planted, then ducks his head and climbs out onto the street in front of the courtinghouse, ready to get bonded.

The air outside is warm, though it lacks the heady heat of the summer, just departed; they walk up the gentle slope of the ramp to the front doors of the building with slow deliberation, Raven more a guide than a leader, the slightest twitch of her fingers on his arm giving him direction enough that Charles can make his way with dignity and poise, instead of weaving about as he’s seen some Doms do when headed for their bondings. The tenor of their footsteps changes once they’re inside, and the flooring underfoot becomes finer, smoother, ringing echoes sounding out all around them all the more musical for his lack of sight. He knows from previous visits that it’s a grand old building, quite the equal of any of the old-fashioned hotels in the city - and yet right now he couldn’t care less about the sweeping staircase or the gilding in the marble floor of the lobby.

“Mr Xavier,” someone says off to his left, and Charles doesn’t jump, just turns and gives the usher a slight tilt of his head, utterly focused on what lies ahead of them. There are voices somewhere near, echoing in the high ceilings - friends and family members come to see him bonded, waiting on his arrival. “If you’ll follow me,” the man continues, quiet and respectful, and lays a hand on Charles’ other arm, just under his elbow. His grip is light, guiding only, and together they turn to take the left of the two doors at the far end of the foyer that lead into the bonding room. The Dominant’s door. Raven’s hand squeezes tight around Charles’ arm, then loosens again as the gathered witnesses fall quiet. In the sudden silence the sound of Charles’ breathing is loud inside his head, and he raises his chin, squaring his shoulders, and walks forward alone.

It’s a straight line to tread along the thick carpet, following the ridges under his feet to guide him to the front, and even though he’s taking pains not to overhear anyone’s thoughts - passing them by, insignificant flames - he is instead exquisitely aware of the bright blaze of Erik’s mind in the room with him, drawing nearer with every step Charles takes, even Raven paling into the background.

When he reaches the double-ridge that in the carpet at the front of the chamber Charles comes to a halt beside his promised submissive, placing his feet precisely on his mark. Even inhaling makes him feel impatient when it drags in the scent of Erik’s aftershave, heady and crisp, the blindfold magnifying it a thousand times over. They’re stood so close that Charles can hear from the sound of Erik’s breathing that Erik is standing instead of kneeling, as would be traditional, is stood at his side, defiantly above Charles by virtue of his height; that if Charles were to reach sideways he would find Erik’s hand and not his hair at his fingertips.

Charles smiles.

It’s not a long ceremony, since neither of them is especially religious - Raven had offered Erik a Jewish ceremony, since Charles wouldn’t have minded, but Erik had refused, and so they have gone for a more straightforward bonding, more for the purposes of satisfying legalities than about their joining. _That_ comes later, in private,- this public part is for everyone else, as is the party afterwards which neither he nor Erik will attend, too busy with each other, in one way or another. Nevertheless, the whole process seems interminable to Charles, stood at Erik’s side, then, after, turning to face him to give his public vows, and unable to see him - knowing everyone else can, can see Erik’s mouth move as he gives his vows in return, his voice carrying strong and confident in the well-crafted acoustics of the hall.

Then Raven hands Charles the ring his parents had made for him at his birth, his name engraved upon the inside, and he feels a great upswell from the crowd behind him as he hands it to Emma and receives Erik’s in return to be added to the family records, Head Dominant to Head Dominant. When his fingers close around it there’s a loud cheer and applause from everyone else in the room - one or two of them catcalling as Charles and Erik are both taken out through different doors to sign their separate registries and thence out to the back of the building to be taken home.

Home, to complete things between them.

 

~*~

 

Delaying half an hour until Erik has had time to settle in and wait for him is torturous, and by the time Raven lets him go - laughing at his eagerness even as she radiates happiness - Charles is ready to take the stairs two at a time up to their floor, too hyped up to wait in one place for the elevator or to stand still once he’s in it. It’s a bit of a climb, but it gives him time to school himself to calm and patience, and most of that impetuous, uncontrolled energy has worn off by the time he hits the fourth landing, his thighs starting to burn from the exertion. By the time he’s reached the tenth Charles’ chest is feeling a little tight, and he’s ready to take the elevator to the twenty-second floor, where he can already feel Erik’s mind waiting for him.

Erik isn’t asleep, his mind is far too active for that - Charles can’t quite manage to be surprised, even though Raven had told him it was to be a very traditional First Night, with all the trappings of silks and burning oils. Even so, Charles doesn’t intrude, yet, stays calmly in the very centre of the elevator car, thumbs tucked into the pockets of his suit pants. The corridor is quiet when he reaches their floor, and no-one else is around to see him as he walks slowly along to the plain, cream-painted door and, with quiet intent, drawing in one last deep breath, reaches for the key in his pocket.

The door clicks open of its own accord before he can so much as touch it.

Everything inside the apartment is just as he left it when he was here two days before to fill the fridge and make sure everything was perfect; one of the chairs is in a slightly different place, and the rug is rumpled where someone has dislodged it with their foot, but otherwise everything is untouched, outlined in the light from the hallway, the room itself dark with dusk. Charles moves forward into the shadowy apartment and the front door closes behind him with a sound like a metal sigh. For a moment, everything is shades of greys and blacks and deep blues, unlit; then the door that leads to the master bedroom swings open across the room, spilling soft candlelight across the floor, and Charles, willing to play along, takes his cue. 

Erik is sat on the end of the bed with his feet planted firmly on the floor, still fully dressed in what has to be his bonding suit, a little rumpled from being taken off for his sleeping vigil then put back on again, no doubt, as soon as he was left alone. It’s slim-cut and dove grey, cut close to his body and only emphasising the lean shape of him, even seated - the breadth of his shoulders and the gorgeous slenderness of his waist, unhidden even by the unbuttoned jacket and the waistcoat underneath it. Charles’ breath hitches in his chest like it’s caught on a hook, and he stands in the doorway just to look, to stare, meeting Erik’s eyes as he looks back, heated and equally unrestrained.

There’s a censer hanging from a little stand on the dresser and a hint of smoke in the air where Erik must have snuffed it out after Emma left him, leaving only the faintest traces of the traditional soporific scent behind. Charles doesn’t care. There’s a certain romance in the idea of a submissive waking up to find their new Dominant already there over them on their bondage bed, in a position of power, and there’s always the added benefit of it helping them to stay calm for that first, ardent encounter, but it’s the submissive’s choice to use it, and that sort of pharmaceutical pageantry wouldn’t suit Erik. No, it had to be like this - eye to eye, looking at one another across the room where they are finally able to touch, to bond, if Erik allows it.

“Hello,” Charles says, and steps inside.


	10. The Heart of the Matter, Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter! I owe a great depth of gratitude to my betas Subtilior and Spicedpiano for helping me through this story, without whom it would be far worse off; and of course to everyone who has read, enjoyed and reviewed throughout, and who has been patient waiting for this chapter, which due to RL issues has taken much longer than expected. I hope you enjoy it!

There’s a moment before Charles speaks where Erik could stop all of this, stop everything before he gets in too deep, but then Charles looks at Erik with those intense blue eyes of his and says, calm and unhurried, “Hello.”

And then it’s too late.

Erik is caught, despite his best efforts and all his preparation, though Erik breathes in ready to speak, when Charles steps into the bedroom, into the candlelight, Erik’s breath catches again, making a reply impossible. He can’t help but watch as Charles reaches up to his own throat and those strong fingers of his sink into the knotted silk of his tie, tugging it down and away enough that he can unfasten the top button of his shirt, pulling the crisp white fabric to either side. Erik’s whole body feels electric and waiting, his skin prickling under his clothes; he’s caught trying to decide what to say and failing utterly. There is something about Charles, here, something visceral, some invisible cord tied up inside of Erik that Charles has the other end of, like a leash - the bob of Charles’ Adam’s apple under that small V of opened shirt nearly undoes him.

“Hey,” he says, and if his voice comes out thick and heavy with things unsaid, then the look in Charles’ eyes makes up for it.

Under that gaze he feels like he’s on display, framed by the casual opulence of the room – it’s like something out of a design magazine, the whole apartment is, but the bedroom is painted a dark teal, the bedstead and the handles on the furniture and the curtain rails and everything that can be is made of metal, singing out around him - a set in harmony, somehow, and how did they do that, how did anyone without Erik’s ears know? Even the curtains are a deep sea-green velvet, absorbing light and keeping everyone and everything else out, and it makes the room into a private den that feels hidden from the world, safe, something Erik who has grown up with Emma’s sleek white minimalism had never even thought to want. It’s as though Charles knew something Erik didn’t know about himself. And in the middle of it all Charles is pale and beautiful, staring at him with eyes that blaze.

Erik forces his hands to uncurl, straightening further to make his body language explicit, muscles stiff to the point of discomfort. “I’m not just going to kneel for you,” he says, refusing to look away. His heart is pounding in his chest, but he won’t duck his head.

“I know,” Charles says, and he doesn’t come any closer, just tucks his hands into his pants pockets with casual grace, not caring if it musses the line of his suit. “I don’t want you to kneel unless I earn that from you. I’m not just going to force you to do whatever I tell you to. You’re not a dog.”

It’s much too close to Hazel Frost’s taunts, and Erik flinches, teeth grinding. Charles’ expression shifts to concern. “Ah. That was the wrong thing to say, I take it?”

“How much do you know about me?” Erik asks, and Charles shrugs.

“Enough to know I want to know everything about you,” he says, and takes another step closer, until he’s halfway between the door and the foot of the bed where Erik’s sitting. Erik can smell his cologne, something sharp and masculine. “Enough to know that you had no intention of staying bonded to me, but that you’re thinking about changing your mind. I won’t make you, but I would like it if you stayed.”

Everything crystallises in that moment, a sudden intuition that he doesn’t know how to deal with yet. “Emma knew. She told you.”

“Right at the start. I came into this with eyes open, and I don’t want the first thing between us to be a secret, so I’m telling you,” Charles says, still calm, controlled. “You were worth the risk.”

He still hasn’t moved any closer, as though he’s perfectly happy to let Erik have the territory of the bed, and for Charles to stand there as though he is a supplicant before a throne, as though Erik is anything but the submissive he’s been handed on a silver platter is terrifying. It’s so far the opposite of what Erik would have expected that he just - snaps.

“Why?” he demands, every muscle in his body tensed up and ready to fight or fly, sat in his rumpled suit on the end of his bondage bed staring at Charles, who wants him despite everything, who doesn’t care that Erik has decided not to want him, that Erik wants him despite himself. “Why would you possibly say yes to that, Charles, if you’ve known all along? What possible reason could you have to agree to get bonded to me anyway?”

“Will you let me show you?” Charles steps closer again, and the room fills with an intense, overpowering atmosphere, like he’s stood at the centre of a storm, the pressure of his mind loosed between them, an immense power condensed into this one room and focused on just one mind. “Trust me once, Erik. Let me show you why I would risk everything on the off-chance that you would say yes.”

Erik can’t breathe. He feels submerged, subsumed.

Erik says, “Show me.”

Charles lifts two fingers to his temple, and everything - slows - down. Until Erik can feel the individual beats of his heart in his chest, slow and steady, like they’re on honeyed time, dripping from a spoon. It’s so far beyond any connection he’s ever shared with Emma - the look on Charles’ face is overpowered by the way Charles _wants_ him, emotion hot and possessive and spilling over, wanting Erik not so he can show everyone he can force _the Insuperable Mr Lehnsherr_ to his knees but because Charles wants Erik to want to submit to him. Wants to win that from him, to have the submission of someone he respects and who will fight him and challenge him and who will win some of the time, someone whose submission is worth having, who doesn’t love lightly. The thought is wordless, like a taste on Erik’s tongue instead of a sound, but it comes across so clearly - that Charles wants Erik’s trust and obedience because Erik would never give it to someone who didn’t deserve it. Charles doesn’t try to hide his hope that Erik will let him try, or his worry that Erik might reject him, or his fear that he’ll try and it won’t be enough, that Erik will throw him over, leave just as proud and irresistible and beautiful as he came. The weight of Charles’ desire – for Erik’s mind, yes, but for his body, too, with a shocking and visceral lust - is intoxicating.

Charles doesn’t hide anything, even things that any Dom might try to keep hidden to maintain public face and control, and it’s that utter, brutal honesty that Erik responds to, gasping and too hot, his cock hard in his pants and throbbing against his thigh, and Charles’ cheeks flushed and his own zipper tented, still waiting without so much as moving, until Erik says, with his heart in his mouth, “Please.”

The word has barely left his lips before Charles moves, darting across the space between them and climbing into Erik’s lap on his knees, straddling Erik’s thighs and kissing him fiercely, hands coming up to take hold of either side of Erik’s head and keep him in place. A slick tongue presses into Erik’s mouth, curling around his, and Erik can’t help but moan, hands coming up to clutch at Charles’ waist as he opens to it. Charles’ body rubs up against his, hot and firm and overwhelming even through all their clothes. Nobody has ever touched him like this before, and as soon as Erik thinks it Charles gentles, breaking away and letting Erik drag in deep gasps of air.

“I’ll stop if you tell me to,” Charles says, thumbs rubbing along Erik’s cheekbones, shifting restlessly in Erik’s lap so that his weight presses down on Erik’s thighs and up against his hard cock, an equal hardness pressed against Erik’s belly. “Physically or mentally. You need a safeword, pick something for now and you can choose something else later for long-term use if you like.”

It’s like his entire body is tingling and alive, every nerve ending focused between his legs, everywhere they’re touching. Erik wants it, whatever Charles wants to give him, but there’s a voice in his head that isn’t Charles, wondering if he’s made the right choice, if this is worth it, if he’s going to be disappointed - or disappointing. 

And of course Charles hears that, too. He sits back a little, hands moving to cup Erik’s face and leaning down - he’s taller like this - to lean his forehead against Erik’s, eyes so close and yet still open, until they’re all Erik can see, endless shades of blue, dizzying and commanding. 

“It’s my job to make sure you’re not disappointed,” Charles says, planting his knees firmly on either side of Erik’s hips and pressing in, bracketing him there. “God, there is no way right now you could disappoint me. What’s your safeword?”

Erik stares back at him, a little mesmerised, and eventually he says, “Titanium.” This time he kisses Charles.

In the warm, soft-lit bedroom every moment is heightened, the heat of Charles’ hands on his face and in his hair, sliding down to his shoulders, mapping out their breadth; the compact strength in Charles’ body when Erik starts to explore, tentatively at first then with more confidence when Charles hums against Erik’s mouth in wordless encouragement. The bed creaks as they shift, and everything is the taste of Charles’ mouth as he coaxes Erik with his tongue and lips and teeth. Erik shudders all over when Charles’ fingers start slipping free the buttons of his waistcoat and then his shirt, the ones he so hastily refastened after Emma’s departure and before Charles’ arrival.

Everything is taut and thrumming, and Erik breaks the kiss to tip his head back, gasping for breath. Charles takes it as an excuse to bend his head and bite the exposed line of his throat, teeth closing around the space just under Erik’s jaw and digging in, sparking sharp pleasure and making Erik groan. He slides Erik’s shirt and waistcoat off together, down his arms, over his wrists until he can toss them aside, and then Charles puts both hands on Erik’s chest and pushes him down onto his back, sucking on the bite he’s just made and not letting go even as he rides Erik down onto the mattress, straddling his hips and stretching over his body to keep the hold.

“Titanium,” Erik says, without any input from his brain, and everything stops.

Charles immediately lets go, raising his head to look Erik in the eyes with cheeks flushed red, his pupils blown wide and dark, almost hiding the blue.

“Alright,” Charles says, though his voice is unsteady, tinged with worry and disappointment. “Alright.” He makes to get up, but Erik grabs him by the legs and holds him where he is, doesn’t let him get to his feet.

“What do you want from me?” Erik asks, hands running restlessly down Charles’ thighs, unable to stay still. He swallows, the bite a stinging burn on his throat - the ache of it goes straight to his cock, still pinned and twitching helplessly in his pants under Charles’ ass. His feet are dangling over the side of the bed, the edge of the mattress digging into the backs of his knees.

“What do _you_ want?” Charles’ voice is more neutral now, his hands held where Erik can see them. His lips are swollen. “Erik, you used your safeword. I’m not going to touch you until you give me permission.”

Erik swallows again, hot all over. “Just checking.”

“You’re alright?”

“Can’t you tell?” Erik asks, shifting restlessly under Charles’ weight, but Charles doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do anything, and eventually Erik says, voice cracking, “I’m fine. It’s fine.”

“Then take off my waistcoat,” Charles says. It’s not a request. 

Erik’s hands jolt into motion, fumbling and a little nervous, but Charles’ expression is - he looks like he wants to bite Erik again, like it’s all he can think about.

The positioning is wrong for Erik to reach far enough to push the waistcoat all the way down Charles’ arms behind his back, but when he tries to sit up Charles shifts, lightning quick, and presses his knee down on Erik’s chest, pinning him to the mattress with his full weight. The movement is startling, and Erik flinches then tries to struggle, nearly throwing him off, but Charles stays put, breath coming faster, as though it turns him on. “Stay there,” Charles says, and slides his waistcoat the rest of the way off himself, dropping it on the floor at the foot of the bed. “You can say your safeword again if you want me off you, otherwise I will keep you where I want you. Take off my shirt.”

It’s - Erik thrashes, can’t stand being held down like this, he can’t, except that he’s harder than he’s ever been and his mouth refuses to say the word, and his breath is so sharp and ragged, and he can’t -

“Shh.” Charles moves his knee, sitting back where he was before, across Erik’s hips and upper thighs, taking the pressure off Erik’s chest. “Now, please take off my shirt, Erik.”

“Is that a request or an order?”

Charles smiles. “Both.”

Erik’s fingers obey before his brain tells them to, his heart still beating like a drum. The torso underneath the shirt is pale, and lean, and Charles’ nipples have drawn up tight and aroused, small and pink and perfect. Erik can’t help it - he presses up again, and Charles grabs Erik’s hands and shoves Erik back down with his knee, eyes narrowing and the flush on his cheeks deepening, spreading to his chest. It’s not embarrassment - Charles’ fly is straining, the shape of his cock almost visible through the fabric stretched across it, made more obvious by the spread of his legs. “I said stay,” he says, and lets go of Erik’s hands to tug his own shirt off, dropping that too.

This time Erik when struggles it’s more because he wants to see if Charles can keep him there. He grabs Charles at the waist and tries to roll them, but Charles is too quick for him, keeping his knee heavy on Erik’s chest and bringing his foot to bear –the top of his shoe digs in between Erik’s legs, pressing down on his erection and shocking him into stillness. He can feel the knotted laces all down the length of his cock, digging into the sensitive flesh through his pants. Charles’ expression is one of triumph as he puts his hands on Erik’s chest, stroking, proprietary in a way that sends shivers down Erik’s spine. “Good boy,” Charles says, and moves Erik’s hands from his waist to his shoulders without removing his foot from Erik’s crotch.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” Erik says, staying where he is this time. He’s - God, he’s hard, every inch of him tingling and aroused at how easily Charles has trapped him, kept him there. “What are you - what do you want to do?”

Charles’ eyes are dark, and he rocks his weight forward onto his knee - which hurts until he slides it off to the side, relieving Erik of the weight on his chest. “I was thinking I would sit on your cock and ride you,” he says, matter-of-fact and utterly devoid of shame. “I like getting fucked, and I want this - ” he reaches down between them to rub his hand up and down between Erik’s legs, squeezing, “in my ass. You’re going to finger me open the way I tell you to and then I’ll take care of you. Okay?”

Erik swallows hard, helplessly aroused and trying not to come at the feel of Charles’ hand on him, at the thought of it. “Okay,” he says, and Charles’ smile turns into a grin as he lifts himself higher over Erik so he can get at his belt, pulling on the leather until it comes loose and then going for the fly underneath. The release of pressure is almost like coming, and Erik groans as his cock springs upward against the fabric of his underwear, tipping his head back again before he can help himself.

“You’re going to be so good,” Charles says, pleased, shifting to one side and tugging on Erik’s pants until he lifts his hips to help Charles drag them down his legs, taking Erik’s briefs with them until he’s left totally naked. “God, Erik, look at you.”

There’s a long silence while Charles just – stares, lips parting a little as he looks at Erik, head to toe, his gaze catching and staying on Erik’s cock, and Charles lets out a small, guttural sound, practically salivating.

Everything feels almost surreal, hyperreal maybe, and Erik can’t help but feel self-conscious, his nakedness and arousal catching up with him until he can feel himself - fuck - blushing. “I want to move,” he says, testing, and after a moment’s pause where he thinks Charles is going to object instead he nods, staying above Erik but with enough room for Erik to push himself further up the bed so his legs are no longer hanging over the edge, his body fully supported by the mattress. He sits up on his elbows and just stares at Charles, taking him in where he’s kneeling on the bed looking back - naked from the waist up, body toned and compact, smaller than Erik but strong, masculine but beautiful, anyway, dark hair and red lips in stark contrast to his pale skin.

Charles reaches out and strokes his fingers over Erik’s ankle, smoothing the jut of bone with his thumb. “It’s okay,” he says, calm and confident and waiting for Erik, not pushing. “Tell me what you want.”

Erik swallows, hard. “Take off your pants.” He doesn’t make it a request, and Erik waits to see what Charles will do.

There’s not even a flicker of irritation at what is essentially an order. Instead, Charles gets to his feet, bracing them far apart for balance as he stands fully upright on the bed and sways slightly from side to side with the give of the springs. He reaches for his own belt, slipping it free slowly and looking down at Erik the whole time. Erik can feel every metal tooth of Charles’ zipper being dragged down like a striptease, and then Charles lets his pants drop, leaving him standing there over Erik in tight black briefs that hug his crotch and ass - Erik gets a good look when Charles turns to face the other way to slide his underwear down and off, bending to slip the fabric off and stepping out of them, kicking both them and his trousers onto the floor. Erik doesn’t realise he’s staring until Charles looks over his shoulder and raises an eyebrow, saying, in a voice that makes it clear which of them is really in control, “What next?”

His mouth is so dry he has to work to get enough saliva to speak. “What if I want you to fuck me?” Erik rasps, lifting his chin.

Charles turns back around, his hard cock bobbing between his legs – Erik can’t help but look at it, thick and dark with arousal, curving up towards Charles’ belly. A throb of lust runs through him that he recognises with surprise is his own, and Charles grins, stepping forward and dropping to a crouch in the space between Erik’s legs then rocking forward onto his knees so he’s on all fours above Erik. The very tip of his cock trails against Erik’s belly, leaving a wet trail on the skin.

Charles smiles down at Erik and reaches to stroke the back of his hand down the side of Erik’s face, his neck, the smoothness of his fingernails leaving tingling trails down Erik’s skin. “If that’s what you really wanted, then I’d fuck you,” he says, and leans in to kiss the corner of Erik’s eye, easily affectionate in a way that leaves Erik tense and yearning with the intimacy of it. “But it’s not. You’re just being contrary.”

Erik swallows, not letting himself lean into Charles’ touch. “You don’t even know me. What if you decided you knew better than me when I used my safeword?”

“I won’t do that. If you say it, I’ll stop, whether you really want me to or not,” Charles says, and moves his lips to Erik’s temple, pressing them there. “And I know enough to know I want you. You let me in.”

“And if I said to get out?”

“I’d get out. But that’s not what you want either. Now…” The curve of his lips shifts against Erik’s skin. “Erik. What I want is for you to dip the fingers of your right hand in the oil that’s heating on the bedside table and get them slick, and then I want you to slide your index finger into my ass.”

A sharp shudder runs through Erik’s body, and for an instant he considers breaking loose and leaving - Charles wouldn’t stop him, not really, Erik’s fairly sure of that now. But instead, without even really thinking about it he finds himself reaching for the small brazier and submerging the fingers of his right hand in the warm oil. It’s slippery and sweet-smelling when he raises them to his nose, and he rubs his fingers together to spread the slick before sitting up a little - staying within the cage of Charles’ body over him - and moving his hand back and behind Charles’ body to rest between Charles’ buttocks, touching his bare skin and biting his lip to try and hold in a moan as he trails his fingers down the crack of Charles’ ass until he finds - Erik’s breath catches. Charles’ hole is a sleek little pucker under his fingertips, muscle clenching around where Charles wants Erik to put his cock.

“That’s good,” Charles says, and leans back into Erik’s fingers, almost forcing himself back onto them, ignoring his erection in favour of that touch. His eyes have slipped closed, his eyelashes two dark bows against his flushed cheeks. His lips are slightly parted, breath a little heavy, but then he says, “I promise that end doesn’t bite.”

Erik presses in.

There’s a moment where the muscle tries to resist, but then there’s a fluttering and squeezing around his finger as it slides into Charles’ ass, which is smooth and hot and tight inside, clutching at the intrusion. Charles opens his eyes, finding and holding Erik’s gaze as he pushes himself back onto that finger until it’s in up to the knuckle. Curious, Erik bends his finger and he can feel it when Charles’ body shifts with him; he pulls it out a little way then pushes back in and the slick sliding drag of it is outshone by the way Charles groans and pushes back against him, still holding that stare, looking deep into Erik’s eyes as he fucks himself on Erik’s finger.

“Another,” Charles says, and Erik obeys.

By the time they’re up to three Erik is thinking as loudly as he can that he wants Charles to kiss him, to give him an outlet for his spiralling arousal, another connection besides his fingers spreading Charles open - but all Charles says is, “Not yet,” and then he’s leaning forward and off Erik’s fingers entirely, on hands and knees over Erik’s prone body, nothing of them touching and the air between them so dense with want that Erik swears he can feel it crackling with the electric longing of his skin for Charles’, more than he ever expected to want anyone.

He opens his mouth to - say something, to demand that Charles does something, perhaps, but before he can Charles reaches for the oil, getting his hand messy and dripping with it, then behind himself to wrap his fingers tight around the base of Erik’s cock. The touch of his hand is like a kick to the stomach, and Erik groans and arches into it as Charles strokes him once, twice, slicking him from tip to balls. It’s overwhelming, his whole body reacting like Charles has tazed him, and he barely notices as Charles raises himself high, lining them up, before slowly impaling himself on Erik’s cock, his hole splitting open around the swollen head and engulfing Erik, sliding steadily down.

It feels -

Erik pushes up from the mattress and crushes his mouth to Charles’ in a ferocious kiss, hands grabbing at Charles’ thighs as Charles pushes downward, pressing Erik deeper and deeper inside of him and kissing him back with equal fierceness, biting at Erik’s lower lip and grabbing Erik’s shoulders to shove him onto his back again without breaking away. The inside of him is hot and squeezing and so slick around Erik’s cock as Charles groans into his mouth, and Erik is so hard it hurts, stunned arousal startling him into letting himself be pinned; his body wants nothing more than to thrust up into that tight hole, but there’s nowhere left to go, Charles is sat right down in the cradle of Erik’s hips with his cock against Erik’s stomach and his ass pressed to Erik’s balls, all the way on him.

He can feel it when Charles smiles, their breath mingling in the no space between them as Charles says, very seriously, catching hold of Erik’s hands on his thighs and squeezing. “Erik, you belong to me now. I will look after your interests and protect your safety, fill your needs and accept your submission. Submit to me.”

Erik chokes, caught off guard and beyond distracted by the clutch of Charles’ body around his cock; he knows the response Charles is hoping for but he can’t say those words. He turns his face away, unable to meet that direct gaze.

Above him, Charles’ breath catches. Erik can feel the jolt of it where they’re connected, but it’s nothing to how he feels when Charles leans forward and just says, “Please,” as though it’s not hard for him to ask instead of order, even sat as he is with Erik inside of him.

Erik‘s hands curl under Charles’, away from his thighs. “I can’t. Don’t ask.”

“Are you mine or not?”

“How can you ask me that now, like this?” Erik asks, and even to himself he sounds - lost, held in place only by the weight of Charles on top of him, keeping him there. “Don’t you know?”

“You have to say it,” Charles says, stroking the softer skin between Erik’s fingers with his own. His ass clenches reflexively around Erik and both of them groan. “Tell me now, or I’ll get back off you and we’ll forget about this whole thing.” 

“I - ”

“I’m not going to be your throwaway Dominant, Erik, I want to keep you. This isn’t going to be a one night stand. Are you mine? Because I’m yours, if you say yes.”

It’s - he feels trapped, desperate, caught between wanting to fuck Charles and wanting to run; he tries to pull on his hands, but Charles won’t let go, and Erik’s not strong enough mentally to throw him off physically, not now. He looks back up at Charles and finds him staring back, determined. “I could make you, but I won’t,” Charles says softly. 

Erik swallows, hard, and makes up his mind.

His voice is cracking as he speaks, but he keeps going despite it, closing his eyes so he doesn’t have to meet Charles’ gaze. “Charles, I - yes. I - I can’t say - the rest of it makes me want to, to hit something, but. I.”

Charles kisses him, fierce and demanding, and his whole body shifts as he lifts himself half off Erik’s cock only to press back down again with a slick wet sound, stroking Erik in and out of his body as he strikes up a steady rhythm, fucking himself on Erik’s cock. The squeeze of it is incendiary, shooting pleasure up Erik’s spine. He tries to move, to grab at Charles’ body, his hips, clutch him closer, but the grip on his hands holds them tightly down against Charles’ straining thighs, trapped and immobilised and right where Charles wants them.

“Let me,” Erik says when they break apart to breathe, quivering with the need to fuck up into Charles, only just holding himself still but pleading silently for Charles to let him move.

“Come on then,” Charles says, and bends his head to kiss and then bite the side of Erik’s throat hard enough that Erik’s hips thrust up hard to meet him on the downstroke, slamming together and startling a loud cry from Charles. Once he’s started, Erik can’t make himself stop. It feels - amazing, the tight squeeze of thrusting himself inside Charles’ body, over and over, and when Charles matches Erik’s rhythm suddenly they’re moving in sync, hands tangling as they fuck, holding on to one another, mooring themselves together. 

Charles’ lips and teeth shift across Erik’s skin until he finds Erik’s mouth, and his tongue presses forward, fucking Erik above as Erik fucks him below. << _Let me in._ >>

Charles’ voice resonates in Erik’s mind and he gasps, the widening of his mouth letting Charles’ tongue in deeper, controlling the kiss. << _Yes,_ >> he thinks in response, too far gone in pleasure to think of reasons to object, and he feels the touch of Charles’ thoughts before everything magnifies, not blending but getting more intense instead - the heat between them, his own arousal and Charles’ there, too, palpable ecstasy as they come together, slide apart only to come together again, his thighs burning but unable to stop.

<< _Stroke me off,_ >> Charles thinks, demands, and he lets go of Erik’s right hand only long enough to tug it over between his legs as he rises and falls, curling Erik’s grip around the hard length of his cock where it’s slapping against Erik’s belly and dragging their joined hands up and down in time with the snap of their hips. << _Fuck - try not to come until I -_ >>

Erik breaks away from their kiss to gasp for breath, and says, raggedly, “I’m not sure I can - please - ”

The word seems to push him over the edge, and Charles cries out and comes all over Erik’s stomach and hand, ass squeezing down tightly as he shoves his hips down on Erik’s cock, head tipping back with his mouth falling open, his whole body seizing; the clench of him sets Erik off too, and he shouts, wordless, orgasm ripping through him and cock jerking and spurting come into Charles’ ass where it’s tight around him. His eyes screw themselves shut as he gasps and shudders and fucks his way through it, hips jerking and stuttering up into Charles again and again, trying to get deeper when there’s no deeper to go.

Charles’ hands clamp down on either side of his face and hold his head steady, controlling in a way Erik is too far gone to protest, too wrung out by his orgasm and falling limp once his cock has finished jerking and started slowly to soften. “Mine,” Charles says softly, possessively, and bends to press a kiss to the hollow of Erik’s temple, as though laying claim to more than just the skin and bone he can touch.

 

~*~

 

When Charles wakes the next morning he’s alone in the rumpled bed, body still thrumming and sore from the night before, lying on his belly with one arm curled under his head and the other stretched out into the cooling space beside him. It’s like being punched in the gut, and he reaches instinctively to locate Erik’s mind, heart leaping into his throat - but Erik is only in the shower, washing off the sweat and the dried mess Charles left on his belly.

Relaxing again, now that he listens with his physical ears Charles can hear the water running behind the closed door, a heavy rhythmic patter against the tiles. Erik feels stubbornly grumpy in his head, despite the expensive rainforest-style showerhead Charles had installed and the fact that what they had last night was truly fantastic sex that left the lingering afterglow effect still tingling down his nerves, even by Charles’ standards and far beyond what he thought likely for Erik’s first time.

With his ass still aching wonderfully from last night’s very thorough reaming, Charles is more inclined to be fond than annoyed, even if strictly speaking Erik should have lingered long enough for them to complete the private part of their bonding ceremony. Having given himself over so well the night before, it’s not surprising that Erik is feeling the need to be mulish today, not even waiting for Charles to wake up before enacting his little act of rebellion. 

Charles stretches all four limbs, taking advantage of the space and feeling the burn in his muscles, arching his back to work out the kinks before sitting up and getting out of bed. If he’s judged rightly, Erik will have taken clothes in with him so he can come out with what he thinks is an advantage. Charles fully intends to show him that who is in charge between them has no relation to who is in a more complete state of dress.

By the time Erik finally emerges Charles is propped back against the headboard with the covers pooled in his lap, chest bare as he reads the day’s paper. He doesn’t look up when Erik stops, surprised, in the doorway - the sight of Charles with newspaper open and a cup of tea at his lips, utterly casual and unconcerned, seems to have derailed Erik’s expectation of having something to fight against. 

“Good morning,” Charles says calmly, and looks up, smiling at the sight of Erik, even though he’s covered all that lovely skin in sweatpants and t-shirt. There’s no hiding the bite marks on his throat, bruised dark purple and delicious. “Come here.”

“Why?” Erik asks immediately. There’s a slight motion of his right foot, however, that betrays the impulse to obey.

Charles raises an eyebrow. “I can hardly kiss you good morning when you’re all the way over there, Erik. Come here.”

He’s projecting reluctance, but Erik comes to sit on the edge of the bed by Charles’ hip, and once he’s settled Charles reaches out to him, taking hold of Erik’s chin and holding firm even when he tries to twitch away. He leans in to kiss him hard, keeping him there until Charles is done. Once Charles has him caught Erik presses into it, into the hold, keener than he’d like to know he lets on.

“Lovely,” Charles says, heart pattering hard in his chest and arousal stirring again between his legs - which he ignores for the time being, since Erik’s not in the mood for a rematch right now. “Good morning, darling.”

Erik lifts his chin a little, stubborn, as though he wasn’t just kissing Charles back, though he doesn’t get up or indeed move any further away. “Morning.”

His cheek is smooth and freshly shaven when Charles strokes his fingertips along the sharp line of his jaw, lingering a moment in the soft hollow under Erik’s ear before letting his hand drop away. He shifts higher against the pillows, the sheets tugging tight under Erik’s weight, and folds up the paper in his lap, setting it aside. “Since you’re up, I have two boxes for you. Fetch them for me from the left-hand dresser and we can open them together.”

“What are they?”

“If you fetch them you’ll find out, won’t you?”

There’s a moment where Erik thinks about refusing, but his curiosity wins out, and, obedient, he gets up from the bed to walk to the dresser as directed. His fingers move for the handle of the top drawer, but pause before opening it, new information registering in his mind, a fascinating sense of metal that Charles experiences with a kind of wonder - they’ll have to explore that later. Instead of opening the top drawer Erik reaches unerringly for the third one down, tugging it out and finding the two boxes on top of a pile of his own sweaters. He glances at Charles over his shoulder, a flash of grey-green as he recognises the contents.

“Bring them here,” Charles says, coaxing a little this time, gesturing with one hand for Erik to come back to him.

Erik comes around the end of the bed again to sit on the edge by Charles’ hip, close enough that they’re pressed together with only the blanket to separate them, even if his feet are still firmly on the floor. The boxes he sets down in his own lap, one shallow and square, the other deeper and long, narrow, like a telescope case, hinged and brass-catched. “I recognise this one,” Erik says quietly, tapping his finger against the long box, his other hand curling almost protectively around it.

Charles smiles, sitting forward and closing the space between them. “Open it, then.”

The catch flicks open seemingly of its own accord, a small exertion of Erik’s power, and the lid lifts the same way, revealing the series of spheres within.

The six layers of the puzzle ball each sit in their own hollow of the velvet-lined case in diminishing order of size, left to right, freshly polished and gleaming in the light, each one a different shade of metal. Erik strokes his fingers across them, his expression almost stunned to find them all there independently of each other. 

He looks up at Charles with lips parted, touch pausing over the sixth and last, a small golden ball the size of Charles’ thumb from tip to first knuckle, sleek and smooth save for the seam that bisects it. “…when?”

“Last week,” Charles says, reaching out and plucking it from the black velvet to hold between his fingertips, shining against his pale skin. When Erik doesn’t object he works his fingernail into the seam and the whole thing splits perfectly in half to reveal the engravings on the flat surfaces inside. “I had to google the poem, but it’s lovely. Not what I was expecting.”

He half expects Erik to take them from him then, but instead Erik takes hold of Charles’ wrist and tugs that closer so he can look himself at the words he left there, then runs his forefinger across the image of the hare in the left half. “ _My heart is my own, the trapped hare belongs to the hour,_ ” he reads, then glances up at Charles again, his gaze hardening into a challenge. “Were you expecting a shiny little heart, then?”

“More concerned it might be full of nerve gas, to be honest,” Charles says, and can’t quite keep his mouth from twitching.

There’s a pause, and then all of a sudden Erik lets out a loud bark of laughter that turns into a full-on fit, face creasing up and revealing lovely crinkling laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, a wide grin changing his expression entirely from stubbornness to something more than last night’s shocked pleasure, better than lust, a genuine mirth that Charles has put there despite all of Erik’s bluster. “I was making a point,” Erik says, but the tension has gone. He wipes his eyes with the back of one hand, swiping away tears of laughter. “You were supposed to spend months failing to solve it. Then I’d open it for you and show you just how futile the effort had been all along, since it meant nothing.”

Charles snorts and fits the two halves back together, hiding the poem away again and setting the reunited sphere back into its place. “My apologies. Next time tell me in advance if I’m supposed to fail your tests.”

“And will you?”

“Of course not, I have my pride,” Charles says, and cups Erik’s cheek in his palm so he can kiss him again, deep and possessive. This time, Erik lifts his own hand and tangles his fingers in Charles’ hair, keeping him there of his own accord and kissing him back just as hungrily, fumbling the case lid shut with his power so that none of the layers can fall out.

It’s a push-pull kiss, back and forth, more a dance than a battle, and Charles strokes Erik with his mind as well as his tongue, a caress of neurons that has Erik moaning into his mouth, fingers tightening and tugging hard on Charles’ hair. When they finally break away they’re both breathing hard, foreheads leant together, neither one willing to pull back any further than they have to for air.

Charles turns his head enough to rub the tip of his nose down the side of Erik’s in a soft, breathless nuzzle, thumb rubbing circles in the hollow at Erik’s temple. “There’s still another box,” he says, and feels Erik’s slight flinch like it’s his own, too close and tangled up in his head.

“There is.” Erik doesn’t pull back, though, just shifts so that he can look at the square black box sitting innocuously in his lap, so close to Charles’ hand on his thigh. “You know I can - tell, what it is.”

“Of course. But that’s not the same as looking for yourself,” Charles says, and after a moment, Erik takes hold of the lid and swings it open on its small, silent hinges.

The collar and bracelet set lie in their own black velvet, one inside the other and polished to a high gleam; there’s no sign even of Charles having tried on the bracelet before handing over his card, every fingerprint wiped clean by the jeweller. The sleek silver metal is an ox-bow shape with a thick loop on the front for attachments, moulded to sit neatly around the front and sides of the throat, then giving way to charcoal leather that lines it on the inside and extends to the clasp at the back, a softer edge to sit against the skin. The overall two-tone effect is strikingly simple.

“Oh,” Erik says, just looking at the set without touching for a long time. 

Outside everything is quiet, the room carefully muffled and sheltered away from other people, but inside Erik’s mind is raging, undecided and fighting between want and fear and rebellion and longing, a tempest Charles listens to with careful patience and does not comment on. Instead, when Erik does not move to pick them up, Charles sets his hand on the outside of the lid and presses the box closed.

“Come on,” Charles says instead, picking up the boxes and putting them aside on the mattress before getting to his feet and offering Erik his hand. “Let me show you the apartment.”

 

~*~

 

Later, they sit side by side on the couch - Erik’s mind blared on all frequencies his simultaneous fascination with and aversion to kneeling, so Charles has left that question well alone for now - and fit the puzzle ball back together, Charles handing Erik the pieces one by one for his clever hands to settle into place, nestling them inside one another like matryoshka dolls. Once completed, the whole is about the size of a large orange, cupped in the palm of Erik’s hand.

“It’s beautiful,” Charles says, reaching out to stroke the outermost layer. The steel is cool and sleek, and Erik shivers just a little, as though he can feel it - something to investigate later.

“It’s yours now,” Erik says, tipping his hand until Charles has to take it or let it fall. The metal is warm from Erik’s skin, feels strangely alive, like something of Erik has been left behind. “It was a gift.”

Charles sets the ball in his lap, then, safe in the folds of his pyjama pants, so he can take Erik’s hand in his and lace their fingers together. “You made it, didn’t you?”

Erik doesn’t resist, but his hand is stiff. “Why, does that invalidate the gift?”

“No, of course not,” Charles says, leaning his shoulder into Erik’s. “Did you read the book I gave you? I was worried it might be a little obscure.”

A snort, but Erik leans right back into him, the shift moving his leg so their thighs are aligned from hip to knee. “I found your note, if that’s what you mean.”

“I left a lot of notes in it, Merleau-Ponty’s an absolute classic when it comes to philosophy of mind,” Charles says airily, and is delighted when he gets an eyeroll for his trouble. It’s a risk, but given the impertinence of the response Charles reaches up and tugs hard on a handful of Erik’s hair as punishment, eliciting a sharp hiss and a full-body jolt - Erik tries to pull away, but Charles doesn’t let go, and not only does Erik not use his safeword, instead the mild pain of the second tug has his legs lolling open, his head tipping back with almost instinctual relaxation into Charles’ grip. It’s entrancing, the ease with which Erik has slipped under Charles’ control – he’d have thought Erik would resist, kick back, but instead it seems to have bypassed the part of Erik’s brain that objects, the long line of his throat exposed and bobbing as he swallows. 

“Remember to tell me if you want me to stop doing anything,” Charles says, shifting his hold to support the curve of Erik’s skull, releasing his hair and stroking his thumb along the base of his skull. “Did you enjoy the book?”

“I didn’t realise there would be a pop quiz after,” Erik says with drowsy slowness, eyes heavy and half shut, languorous, almost, as though pulling on his short hair was enough to put him under a spell. Charles’ thumb brushes the back of his ear and Erik shudders, then startles, head jerking back upright as though he’s been stung and sitting up under his own power, pulling away from Charles until only their thighs are touching. 

Charles tucks his hand against the back of Erik’s head again and tugs, pulling Erik back into place, propping his elbow on the back of the couch so he can better support the weight. “It’s not a crime, you know, to want to be close,” he says, stroking the fingers of his other hand down the bruised arch of Erik’s throat, which stiffens, almost but not quite pulling away. “In fact, it’s pretty normal after someone makes you orgasm. Your body knows what it wants. If you really don’t want to be here, I won’t stop you, but don’t move away from me just because you think you should.”

Erik swallows under Charles’ fingers, lip pulling in as he bites at the inside of it where he thinks Charles won’t notice. 

Charles lets his fingers slip down to rest in the divot at the base of Erik’s neck, between his collarbones, where a collar would rest. “You can change your mind at any time,” Charles adds quietly, leaning in to kiss his cheek, the corner of his eye, the corner of his mouth. “If you want to be mine, you can be. If you no longer want to be mine, I won’t make you stay. You can always take the collar off.”

“I haven’t put it on,” Erik says, but he doesn’t fight the pose.

“You could try it, see how it feels.”

“ _You_ could try it.”

“Alright,” Charles says, and when Erik jerks upright to give him an incredulous look Charles just raises an eyebrow and says, “Bring it in here and I’ll put my money where my mouth is.”

Erik doesn’t move a muscle, but his expression shifts from incredulous to calculating, eyes narrowing as he takes in Charles’ calm expression and tries to find any sign that Charles might be joking. “Really,” he says, asks, though it’s not inflected as a question.

“Really,” Charles replies, and waits.

He still has an expression that says he doesn’t believe Charles will go through with it, but Erik gets up and disappears into the bedroom anyway, coming back a moment later with the jeweller’s box held gingerly in his hand as though it might explode. He hands it to Charles as soon as they’re close enough, and sits stiffly back on the couch as Charles lifts the lid again, revealing the shining collar and bracelet to the morning light. “I would have thought this sort of thing would violate your dignity as a Dom,” Erik says, folding his arms across his chest.

The leather strap of the collar is sleek and soft against Charles’ fingers when he takes it out of the box, the metal hanging pendulously from it, swaying as he opens the clasp and lifts it towards his throat. “Not at all. Help me put it on.” It’s an order, not a request.

Erik hesitates, but then he reaches for the metal and pushes it up and around Charles’ neck, the ox-bow shape of it curling around either side and pressing in as Erik is forced to lean in closer to take hold of the leather, reaching for the clasp. It fastens so tightly to the back of Charles’ neck that it nearly catches some of the hair at his nape, barely a finger’s width of room between the collar and his neck.

“There,” Charles says, feeling the weight of the metal and lifting his chin to make sure Erik can see the full effect. “How does it look?”

There’s a growing flush in Erik’s cheeks as he looks, his gaze fixed on the collar and barely blinking; he takes a sharp breath in, and it hisses between his teeth. “It looks good,” he says eventually, before his eyes rise to meet Charles’. “But anyone could tell it’s not yours.”

Charles laughs, and gets to his feet, picking up the box. “I’m going to go take a look in the mirror.”

He hears Erik get up to follow once he reaches the threshold, but Charles doesn’t turn, just walks through their bedroom to the master bathroom and comes to a stop in front of the sink where he can meet the eyes of his own reflection, and glance down at the collar gleaming around his own neck. It’s interesting to see what he might look like as a sub, but not enticing enough to be more than a means to an end. 

The heat of Erik’s body crowding in behind his beats against Charles’ bare back, and he looks Erik’s reflection in the eyes as he lifts his fingers to stroke the silver at his throat and hook his thumb through the loop, tugging downward. The pull only makes the collar feel more secure, sit closer to his skin, and Charles feels the swell of victory when Erik sways toward him, as though touched somewhere far more intimate.

“I didn’t think you’d really wear it,” Erik says - his feet are firmly planted on the tiles as though rooted to the spot, but his attention is all on the collar. “It doesn’t mean I will, though.”

“I know. But I would like you to wear this for me,” Charles says softly, without turning, keeping his back to Erik even while he watches him watch Charles in the mirror. “So everyone can see that you’re mine. I’m asking, not telling. So will you try it?” He waits, still running his fingertips along the collar, caressing the metal. 

Erik lifts his chin. “It’s not going to make me act any differently.”

Charles smiles. “I wouldn’t want it to.”

And finally, after a long moment where Charles can hear him debating back and forth, temptation warring with his determination not to show any sign of submitting, anything that can be used against him, Erik nods.

In the romantic ideal, they would be still tangled up in bed together after their first time, limned by moonlight and sweating with spent love, trading kisses. Instead Charles reaches behind his head and unfastens the collar from his own neck, slipping it free, then lifts it to reach for Erik’s. Erik bends his head only slowly, and his eyes still glance upward through his lashes to look in the mirror as the body-warmed metal slips around his throat, watching his own reflection. He shifts like a colt being put to harness for the first time, uncertain and chomping at the bit that has been placed in his mouth as though it might hurt him, but he doesn’t pull away, and then the clasp flicks shut and the collar is on, sleek and close and utterly arousing.

“There,” Charles says, and moves to stand beside him so they can both look in the mirror at the proud, pale column of Erik’s throat in the collar. He looks like some wild creature Charles has captured with a silken lasso, barely enough to hold him but standing still nonetheless, caught in that gossamer hold with only the slightest of tremors betraying his urge to fight. Charles picks up the bracelet from the case where he left it on top of the sink, and hands that to Erik. “Put this on me?”

Erik’s fingers are careful as he fastens the bracelet around Charles’ wrist, closing the clasp and then pausing, holding it there like a lifeline, not letting go.

“See? You’ve caught me,” Charles says, and turns his hand in Erik’s grasp until he can wrap his fingers around Erik’s wrist in return, tugging him in close.

Erik looms over him, his extra height giving him an advantage, but when Charles wraps his free arm around Erik’s waist, instead of fighting the embrace it seems to amuse Erik to place his chin on top of Charles’ head. The small sigh he lets out would be inaudible if they were any further apart, but the feeling of reluctant calm that rolls off him when they settle together speaks loud enough for Charles.

 

~*~

 

Their picture appears in the society pages after the first night they eat out, taken with a long lens by some newspaper photographer in the right place at the right time; Charles is leaning forward, talking with his hands as he tries to explain something, while Erik sits back in his chair, an expression of cool amusement on his face - he might almost seem to be humouring his Dominant if it weren’t for the attentive way his head is tilted, the subtle alignment of his body towards Charles’, like a compass needle pointing north.

The caption reads, _Well-known mutant rights advocate and telepath Professor Charles Xavier and his new bondmate Erik Lehnsherr, a metallokinetic architectural engineer for Stark Industries, out together for what is believed to be the first time in public after their recent nuptials. Lehnsherr is the half-brother of NYC socialite Emma Frost, and famous in local society for his brusque style and for taking no prisoners; a fact that seems to have escaped Xavier, who seems to have stormed Lehnsherr’s rocky shores with aplomb, if their casual warmth and flowing conversation is anything to go by. No announcement was made to this publication by the Xavier or Frost families, but when this reporter attempted to approach for a candid comment to go with the photograph he blinked and found himself with his thumb poised over the camera’s delete key ready to blitz his entire day’s work, so chose the better part of valour._  
 _  
_Raven finds the whole thing terribly amusing, but Erik scowls for days until Charles can coax him out of his bad mood with enough storming of his breeches.


End file.
